THE 



UNHEARD CRY 



BY JOE F. SULLIVAN 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE 



UNHEARD CRY 



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By JOE F. SULLIVAN 



SMITH & LAMAR 

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE 

1914 



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Copyright, 1914 

BY 

Joe F. Sullivan 
All Rights Reserved 



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MY SAINTED MOTHER 



PREFACE. 

Six months ago the author of this little 
volume had not thought of attempting to 
write a book. The decision to do so came 
about not long since as the result of his 
receiving hundreds of encouraging letters 
from all over the Nation in response to a 
series of articles by him on the need of 
education for the crippled which appeared 
in several of the leading newspapers of the 
South last winter and spring. The great- 
er number of these letters were written by 
thinking people — preachers, professors, 
politicians, and parents — who invariably 
admitted that they had never thought of 
the matter in the light shown to be true by 
the articles mentioned. Therefore, in this 
book the author has made an effort to por- 
tray the real and unjust conditions under 
which the Cripples exist to-day. No at- 
tempt, however, has been made to play 
upon the sympathy by relating touching 
stories of the trying ordeals undergone by 

5 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

those passing under the rod. Just an ear- 
nest plea is offered, supplemented by a few 
facts that ought to open the eyes of the 
American people to the magnitude and 
effect of their most disgraceful neglect. 
In publishing this book no desire is enter- 
tained for literary glory, but, instead, the 
author hopes that a favorable response 
may be had relative to agitating the adop- 
tion of some sort of educational system for 
the physically handicapped, which is so 
sorely needed for the purpose of clearing 
away the many almost insurmountable 
obstacles that confront them in every di- 
rection. 

Heber Springs, Ark., July i, 1914. 

6 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

The Unheard Cry 13 

The Voice of Nature 28 

Who Loves the Cripple ? 42 

Shall We Educate or Exterminate the Cripple?. 55 

The Mission of the Cripple 70 

The Ambition of the Cripple 75 

The Possibilities of the Cripple 90 

Pity Punishes the Cripple 102 

The Cripples' Christmas 118 

The Cripples' Industrial College 129 

To a Cripple's Mother 142 

What the Church and the State Mean to a 

Cripple 148 

The Confession of a Cripple 160 

A Pardonable Prophecy 170 



INTRODUCTORY. 

I feel complimented that I have been 
invited to furnish a short introduction to 
the author of "THE UNHEARD CRY." 
Two years ago I read a very thrilling ac- 
count of his early life. My first corres- 
pondence with him was to write and as- 
certain if that striking account were au- 
thentic, as I wished to make special men- 
tion of it in my pulpit. Since then I have 
found it an honor and a pleasure to class 
Mr. Sullivan as my friend. 

His life has been one of thrilling inter- 
est from the time he was stricken with 
paralysis at the age of four. Since that 
time he has educated himself and has 
made his support by the work of his facile 
pen. Before he was twenty-one years of 
age he was elected Mayor of his home 
town, receiving more votes than his two 
opponents put together. He not only fur- 
nishes us a thrilling and stimulating ex- 
ample of success under difficulties, but he 

9 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

also has the faculty of inspiring in his 
readers high ideals and the determination 
for their practical fulfillment. 

"The cry of the cripple" should appeal 
to all who hear it. For our author well 
says in this book that education is desir- 
able for the strong and absolutely neces- 
sary for the weak. Certainly no educa- 
tion is complete which ignores the cripple, 
and a profession of religion is powerless 
which does not carry with it help for the 
helpless. Such religion may be very sound 
but very empty — as is the bass drum. It 
is indeed a noble work to change the "crip- 
pled charge" into a "crippled citizen." 

It is my hope and prayer that our bril- 
liant young author's efforts may be so 
rich in results that his most golden proph- 
ecy may be fulfilled. 

Rev. Ben Cox, 

Pastor of Central Baptist Church, Memphis. 
IO 



1 



And only the Master shall praise us, and only the 

Master shall blame; 
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall 

work for fame, 
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his 

separate star, 
Shall draw the things as he sees it for the God of 

Things as They Are! — Kipling. 



PART I. 

THE UNHEARD CRY. 

CRIES have ascended from every- 
where since the creation of man, 
and most of them have been 
heard and answered. The first cry re- 
corded was that which swelled the bosom 
and burst forth from the soul of Adam 
for a mate. It was answered in the form 
of Eve. The next cry that found a hearty 
response was that of Abel in the Garden 
of Eden. "The voice of thy brother's 
blood crieth unto me from the ground," 
said God to Cain as He justly inflicted 
the severe punishment upon the murder- 
ous brother in answer to the cry of Abel's 
spilled blood. Jesus upon the cross cried 
out in His agony unto God and asked if 
He had been forsaken. The earth trem- 
bled, the temple tottered and the rocks 
were rent in answer to the last cry of the 
Crucified One. And so on down through 
the vistas of time countless cries have con- 

13 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

stantly ascended to the Almighty One who 
has ever been willing and ready to answer. 

It is a God-given characteristic of man- 
kind to answer the cry that reaches the 
ear and the heart. It was in response to 
the cry of the hungry and the homeless 
that Solon of Athens restored the Democ- 
racy to his people. It was the cry of the 
pirate-fearing seamen and traders for a 
safe route to India that caused and en- 
couraged Columbus to brave the dangers 
of the unknown seas and to endure the 
many privations of a voyage that led to 
the discovery of the New World. It was 
the courageous cry for independence that 
gave birth to this Nation. And it was a 
similar cry that resulted in the freedom of 
the American Slave. The advanced prog- 
ress of the age is but the material answer 
to the cry of humanity's needs. 

Therefore history will justify the asser- 
tion that no worthy and well-founded cry 
has ever been offered in vain. For God 
and Man have always been eager to still 

14 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the cries of the censured, of the con- 
demned, and of the suffering by removing 
the cause. 

It is upon the mercy of the Almighty 
and the love and unselfishness of humanity 
that the hope for recognition and response 
of every cry is based. Thus the prime 
object of a just cry is to make itself heard. 

But, however, deafened by the din and 
disturbance in the maddened race for 
riches, the world has not yet heard a cer- 
tain cry that has ascended for years and 
years — one that has unfortunately died 
upon the threshold of recognition. The 
cry of the Cripple has been drowned by 
the clamor of the other classes, and, as a 
result, the whole world, and especially av- 
aricious America, is overflowing with an 
army of distorted, disabled, and incapaci- 
tated pilgrims, who, as a class, are recog- 
nized by the public in general as super- 
fluous humanity. Unfortunately, such 
recognition and regard are well founded, 
inasmuch as there are but few exceptions. 

15 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

It does not require a statesman nor even 
a utilitarian to delve into the cause of the 
cry of this pitiable class of people, con- 
spicuous everywhere for their uselessness 
and helplessness, and make it known to 
the world. Neither does it take a great 
politician or preacher to probe the matter 
and then preach a remedy. 

As in everything else, it demands one 
who has had personal experience — one 
who knows the pangs of pain — one who 
has sat unnoticed by the wayside and 
watched the world go marching by in 
triumph, realizing at the time that his 
physical handicap added to his untrained 
mind prevented his going with the pom- 
pous procession — one who is sensitive to 
the excruciating torture inflicted by the 
daggers of discouragement and defeat, 
which deadly weapons are constantly 
sharpened by the unjust conditions al- 
lowed to exist by the thoughtless people 
of Christian America. 

In his troubled heart, he who occupies 

16 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

this unenviable, uncomfortable, unnoticed, 
and almost unbearable position alongside 
of this swarming, hustling thoroughfare 
of progress and success knows full well 
that were he educated and his God-given 
talent trained he would be able to join the 
rank and file and would keep pace with the 
rear guards, anyhow. Moreover, he real- 
izes that his inability to enlist in this swift- 
ly marching army of nation builders is 
due not so much to his helplessness, physi- 
cally, as to his worthlessness, education- 
ally, which latter deficiency is the direct 
cause of the unheard and unanswered 
cry of which we speak — the cry of the 
Cripple. 

In every village and every hamlet and 
every town and every city scattered 
broadcast over this country lectures by 
master minds are delivered on the neces- 
sity and the value of education, and espe- 
cially the so-called Christian education. 
Statistics are read and quoted to the ea- 
gerly attentive audiences, showing conclu- 
2 17 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

sively what per cent, of the college grad- 
uates succeed in the activities of life in 
comparison with the meager success at- 
tained by those who are denied such thor- 
ough education. Special and complimen- 
tary mention is made of the forty-odd 
State universities, which in reality repre- 
sent the galaxy of stars on our flag. The 
different religious denominations are high- 
ly and eloquently praised for their contin- 
uous and successful efforts along the line 
of establishing and maintaining great edu- 
cational institutions in which millions of 
young folks will receive their mental cul- 
ture in the years to come. These lecturers 
do not forget the deserved praise of the 
many millionaires who have endowed with 
countless millions numerous colleges and 
universities that bear their names. 

These same speakers take the opportu- 
nity to tell of the millions of dollars ex- 
pended annually for the education of the 
heathen in distant lands. A vivid picture 
of the miserable conditions of savagery is 

18 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

painted upon the imagination of the audi- 
ence by the brush of eloquence in the hands 
of an orator. As a specific example of 
proof of the helpful value of education to 
a heathen, they narrate in glowing lan- 
guage how some poor uncivilized being 
has been rescued from the bondage of an 
indescribable slavery in the land of the 
Cannibals and brought to America to be 
clothed and taught and cared for in the 
most tender and beneficial way; how he 
has grasped the opportunities ofifered and 
learned the beauties of Western civiliza- 
tion and returned to the land of his nativ- 
ity to teach his poor brothers the way to 
an eternal life. 

In short, they call attention to the cry 
of heathendom and echo it upon the high- 
ways, in the churches, on the streets, and 
everywhere in order that the people, who 
are more than willing and ready to stretch 
forth an arm of assistance, may hear it 
and respond. The result is that thousands 

T -9 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

of souls are being beautified and saved in 
all parts of the uncivilized world. 

Moreover, these mighty advocates of 
learning and Christianity plead for the 
education of the Negro, the Dumb, the 
Deaf, the Blind, and so on, and echo their 
respective cries for due consideration. 
The result is always what is desired and 
demanded. 

But a cry that is feeble to begin with — 
a plaintive and pleading cry that is never 
stilled but always drowned by the deafen- 
ing turmoil of the world — a cry whose 
sound has entered but few attentive ears 
and awakened a response — the cry of the 
Cripples, among whom are our brothers 
and sisters, our neighbors and unfortunate 
friends and acquaintances, our own flesh 
and blood — still ascends unheard and un- 
answered. 

Do we feel that it would be wasting time 
and money to educate the Cripples and at 
the same time feel that we are doing God's 
wishes by sacrificing lives and expending 

20 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

vast sums of money humanizing the hea- 
then at the neglect of our own home ? Or 
do we believe that we ought to lend help 
where help is needed and that no assist- 
ance is due the Cripples, inasmuch as they 
are useless to the commonwealth and re- 
pulsive to society? Are our thoughts so 
deluded as to prompt us to believe that we 
are doing the right thing when we shut 
our ears to the pleading of this particular 
class of unfortunates at our very door and 
allow our charitable and philanthropic 
proclivities to exercise such freedom as 
will touch and benefit lands unknown and 
unseen ? How shall we expect to find jus- 
tification for letting a person of our own 
locality, who possesses the brain of a gen- 
ius but is deprived of the use of his limbs, 
linger on the roadside in the shade and 
rest and rust and hunger and beg and die 
in poverty, obscurity, without having had 
a single chance to realize the possibilities 
of life, while we devote our time, trouble, 
and money in trying to educate and help 

21 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the millions of heathen who are blessed 
with strength and health and most times 
happiness ? Do we not feel that Right and 
Justice demand that some provision must 
be made whereby crippled children may 
have an opportunity to obtain an educa- 
tion ? Is it not sound to reason that if an 
education is essential to the welfare and 
success of the child blessed with the great- 
est blessings of God — normal physique and 
strength — it is a thousand times more nec- 
essary for a child deprived of many of 
these blessings ? 

Think for a moment of the pathetic and 
pitiable condition of the physically handi- 
capped persons who are uneducated — cut 
off from most of the amusements and 
pleasures of youth ; burdens to their folks 
and friends; assisted from place to place, 
perhaps by unwilling hands; objects of 
pity and sometimes of aversion; their un- 
tutored minds and uncultured manners 
made the subject of jest and ridicule ; with- 
out hope, happiness, or encouragement, 

22 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

seemingly forgotten of heaven, their lot is, 
indeed, lamentable and miserable beyond 
description. But education changes this. 
The light of knowledge fills the soul, 
quickens the perception, exercises the 
higher faculties, unfolds and develops the 
entire nature, and thus the crippled fel- 
low becomes the equal of his more fortu- 
nate brothers and sisters. But that is not 
all; it does vastly more — it refines the 
manners, does away with oddities and pe- 
culiarities; it encourages hope, awakens 
ambition, and teaches and enables him to 
earn his own bread and to know what in- 
dependence means. 

The person who has never paused to 
think may casually remark that the Crip- 
ple can attend the same schools that the 
normal students attend, which schools are 
numbered in the thousands. But such is 
not the case. It is true, if a Cripple is 
floundering in the flufify wings of the eagle, 
if he has a rich father or inheritance, he 
can attend one of these great universities, 

23 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

built and designed for those bodily perfect 
and not for the convenience and accommo- 
dation of the weak and imperfect one, by 
employing an attendant and defraying the 
doubled expense incurred on every hand 
on account of his afflictions. He will get 
along tolerably well — well enough in many 
instances to graduate at the head of his 
class. But, on the other hand, take the 
countless thousands of poor, almost help- 
less boys and girls, who compose the 
young but growing army of physical un- 
fortunates, and among whom are many 
whose light of intellect would illumine the 
day if ignited by proper and necessary 
training and cultivation — take them for 
an example, and it will be seen that they 
are unable even to get a glimpse of the 
exterior of one of these numerous colleges 
— many times not so much on account of 
their physical shortcomings as on account 
of their shortness of finances. 

Yes, there are thousands and thousands 
of young boys and girls in this country 

24 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

who are pining in the regions where the 
clouds of affliction and adversity swing 
threateningly low and who proudly possess 
talents and ambitions for professions that 
necessitate college education. They are 
burdens to themselves as well as to those 
around them, so to speak, because they 
have at the present no real hope of ever 
receiving an opportunity to realize fully 
their natural capabilities and their cher- 
ished dreams. Why ? Simply because the 
kind and sympathetic people of the 
Churches and other organizations have so 
far failed to see the need of the Cripple. 
The terrible oversight is due to the fact 
that the world has not heard their cry. 

Thus the cry of the Cripple is no more, 
no less than an earnest and pathetic plea 
for a chance to make up for the physical 
deficiency by coming into possession of a 
thorough and practical mental training — 
the only exigency by which one so situated 
may cope successfully with the adversities 
and obstacles that confront one. In other 

25 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

words, the courageous Cripple makes a 
plea to-day for help in order that he may 
help himself to-morrow; and this plea, 
which has so long gone forth from the 
heart and the soul of him, is for a system 
of education which will provide for his 
imperative needs and eventually liberate 
him from his bondage of ignorance and 
helplessness. 

Such a system of education has been 
provided for every class of human unfor- 
tunates except the Cripples. 

But the time is fast coming when the 
ears of the public will hear and the eyes 
will see and the hearts will be touched and 
the hands will be outstretched toward them 
who have been so long neglected. And 
when this not distant day comes, these 
handicapped boys and girls shall be edu- 
cated in such manner and on such lines as 
will be best suited to their physical condi- 
tions and mental capabilities; they shall 
be trained to utilize to the fullest degree 
those members that are normal. The edu- 

26 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

cation that shall be given them will be 
such as to enable them to face the future 
confidently and fearlessly, to shake their 
fists at defeat and discouragement. 

And in that future day, when the wild 
voices of clamor and of avarice that now 
fill the air are hushed, when memory shall 
review this disgraceful period of history 
that records the utter neglect of the strong 
brother toward his weak brother, when 
the phantom forms of those thousands of 
maimed and marred young folks that were 
compelled to fill potter's graves because of 
no way of support appear before the 
mind's eye, when the unjust conditions 
have changed and the prophecies are ful- 
filled and the burning question, "AM I 
MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" is writ- 
ten in blazing letters upon the face of the 
Heavens — when that day comes, the peo- 
ple who refused to turn a deaf ear any 
longer to the cry of the Cripple will expe- 
rience no compunction of conscience, nor 
will they feel guilty of the crime. 

27 



THE VOICE OF NATURE. 

WHERE there is life there is also 
the Voice of God. By life, hu- 
man life alone is not meant, but 
the life of the lower creations as well. The 
trees, the flowers, all vegetation, serve as 
a medium of transmission for the Al- 
mighty Voice to the soul of man. In short, 
the mysterious Voice that conveys to us 
through Nature lessons and sermons of 
infinite worth is one of the greatest mani- 
festations of God. 

The beautiful revelations of Nature, 
through which the great Voice cries unto 
us with such force and conviction, enable 
us to choose our course and to follow it. 
They reveal to us the hidden beauties and 
latent possibilities of humanity and teach 
us to strive for a life worth while. 

However, before we may obtain the 
full benefit of these Nature sermons or 
lessons, our minds must be in a receptive 
state, our hearts must be open to convic- 

28 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

tion, and our souls must be in tune with the 
Infinite. For when we are in this condi- 
tion the Voice is not inaudible nor does it 
speak in vain. 

As a potential proof of this irrefutable 
assertion regarding the unfathomable 
powers of Nature's preaching, it will be 
pardonable to make mention of an actual 
experience that befell a certain young per- 
son whose whole course was consequently 
changed, insomuch that his aim in life be- 
came an irresistible determination to alle- 
viate a deplorable condition that has so 
long confronted one particular class of 
unfortunates — the Cripples. 

This experience came to him in the garb 
of Nature and spoke to him in language 
sublime. It was while he was a boy in his 
teens that he chanced to linger in an or- 
chard one day and commune with Nature 
in her visible form. His attention was 
drawn by one particular peach tree, the 
sight of which not only seemed to teach 
him a beautiful lesson, but also seemed to 

29 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

encourage him to throw off a yoke of mel- 
ancholy and to determine to live a life of 
usefulness, notwithstanding the bondage 
of affliction by which he was helplessly and 
hopelessly enthralled. In a potent and 
convincing way this little tree assured him 
that it had been left by Providence in the 
orchard as an emblem of encouragement 
— as a specific proof that everything, ev- 
erybody has a niche, a mission, to fill and 
by so doing perfects the Divine Plan that 
much. 

Probably he was the only one with 
whom it ever did converse — matters little 
for that — but it certainly did preach to 
him a wonderful sermon fraught with the 
lessons of the Infinite, of the good, and of 
the possibilities of life. 

Although its language was superb, it 
was not the prettiest and most symmetrical 
tree in the bunch ; instead, it was the most 
crooked — the ugliest. But woven about it 
was a short and simple history which to 
most persons will appear superficial and 

30 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

of no interest whatever ; but to those who 
are burdened with countless infirmities and 
confronted by manifold discouragements 
it will seem as a message of cheer from the 
Almighty and as an inspiration from 
Heaven. Yes, it will shine as a beckoning 
star in the galaxy of hope ! 

Its history was something like this : 
About five years previous this tree, a 
twiglike sprout, was trampled on by some 
horses that broke into the orchard. No at- 
tention was paid to it, as every one thought 
it would die. The Spring following a man 
was employed to plant the orchard in corn. 
He was careful not to injure the trees 
while ploughing near them. When he 
came to the little peach tree heretofore 
badly neglected and mistreated, he evinced 
the same care and attention. A bystander 
told the old man he need not lose any time 
trying to save the sprout, adding: "It is 
of no account, anyway." The old and 
thoughtful farmer retorted: "All it needs 
is a little help, so it can help itself ; because 

31 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

it is bent and broken is no sign it will never 
bear fruit. Why, Sir, it has never had 
even a half show!" He proceeded to 
straighten the little twiglike tree up and 
put fresh soil around its illy nurtured and 
feeble roots, leaving it in excellent condi- 
tion. It was left alone. It grew. 

And on the day this Nature Sermon was 
delivered to the heart and soul of this 
particular person whose whole life was 
changed as a result of his knowledge of the 
tree's history he sat beneath its beneficent 
boughs bending with peaches plentiful 
and leaves luxuriant — sat in silence, in sol- 
emn and serious contemplation, while a 
weighty, worthy, and beautiful lesson was 
unfolded to him. It was weighty because 
it was constituted of so much truth ; it was 
worthy because of its power and pathos; 
it was beautiful because of its simplicity. 

The Great Voice spoke in convincing 
tones, and, in efifect, showed that, notwith- 
standing the fact that the little tree had 
never had an equal chance with the others, 

32 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

being gnarled and twisted and bent almost 
to the earth, it had grown and developed 
and become under innumerable difficulties 
and backsets the most profitable tree in the 
orchard — its peaches being those large and 
luscious Elbertas that have made Arkansas 
famous — all because a thoughtful, sympa- 
thetic man had "helped it to help itself" 
when it was a weakling struggling to sur- 
vive and overcome the onslaught of every 
imaginable force in the category. 

True, its form was not beautiful to be- 
hold, but its fruit was as juicy and deli- 
cious as could be had in any clime. Any- 
how, what cared he for its external appear- 
ance when its internal sweetness was so 
prevalent in the flavor of the peaches ? 

The Voice did not speak in vain. A 
concomitant of the very interesting and 
important lesson flooded his mind and 
touched him deeply. Of all he had seen 
and learned of the wonderful development 
and success of the little crippled and ap- 
parently worthless tree, he made an ap- 

3 33 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

plication to humanity — that portion which 
is, and has always been, pining in the re- 
gions where the clouds of affliction and 
neglect hang low. 

The application was made in the nature 
of a simple simile : 

As this particular weak and bent tree 
was nurtured and given a chance to grow 
and develop into a productive one instead 
of dying slowly or becoming a worthless 
bunch of branches, so likewise might the 
Cripple or physically helpless be given a 
consideration, an education, a chance to 
become self-supporting and a contributor 
to the wealth, peace, and happiness of the 
commonwealth, instead of being compelled 
to grow into a mentally ossified and physi- 
cally atrophied being with a crown of ig- 
norance and a yoke of sorrow to burden 
him down upon the shoulders of Charity — 
the most stinging and sarcastic of all do- 
nors to a helpless but proud recipient ! 

And again : 

As the fruit of a gnarled and twisted 

34 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

tree is made pure, sweet, and wholesome 
by culture, so the life, deeds, and labors of 
an unfortunately deformed person might 
be made noble, helpful, and worth while by 
just and proper training ! 

The Voice continued to speak and ex- 
plain that the tree had but one chance to 
redeem itself in the eyes of the owner, and 
that single chance lay in the possibility of 
its bearing good fruit. Of course it could 
have had no hopes of being permitted to 
remain in the orchard on account of its 
symmetry and the beauty it would lend to 
the surroundings. 

So likewise it is with the Cripple — the 
only chance of redeeming his deplorable 
condition and thereby becoming an enthu- 
siastic and happy being, regardless of the 
foiling of fate, is to bear good fruit, to do 
something worth while — in other words, to 
utilize his brain for the betterment of man- 
kind and the glory of God. For, as a mat- 
ter of fact, his only chance of real success 
lies there. 

35 



i 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

The Voice still continued to speak and 
explain that God has given man but three 
things that can be used to sustain life — 
muscle, brain, and honor. The first two 
are the only ones intended as commodities 
— necessity and despotism have forced the 
last and highest on the market. Muscle 
and brain, unlike honor, are to an over- 
whelming degree the products of careful 
and considerable training and cultivation. 
Therefore, inasmuch as they have to be 
trained and cultivated that physical 
strength and mental power may be at- 
tained for the utility and welfare of any 
individual, how shall even an able-bodied 
person accomplish the tasks of life without 
a partial training of one or both of these 
natural blessings ? 

Thus it is an evident fact that with those 
who are physically handicapped, incapable, 
the muscle proposition is a dead issue and 
that of mentality alone remains. Then a 
thorough and modern mental training is 

36 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

absolutely necessary for the self-mainte- 
nance of the Cripple — his only hope. 

The Voice went on and proved that the 
casual passersby would have looked with 
disgust had some one asserted that within 
five years the little sprout which was dis- 
torted and broken would bear the best 
fruit in the orchard. It took the healing 
powers and convincing conditions of Na- 
ture five years to prove her truth to the 
world. To think that Nature in all her 
powers could not remedy the faults of the 
tree's physique would be to doubt the om- 
nipotence of the Creator. 

Therefore the reckless, unwarranted, 
and unscientific classifying of the Cripple 
with the feeble-minded, with the criminal, 
with the delinquent, with the insane, with 
the dependent, as a useless, superfluous 
human who exists in misery and neglect 
and sorrow only for the purpose of intensi- 
fying the displeasures and irritating the 
feelings of the normal man or woman with 
whom he is constantly thrown, is a grave 

37 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

injustice to a deserving and noble class of 
humanity and a damnable disgrace to civ- 
ilization and Christianity. 

This sort of classification is the only 
kind that the Cripple has ever received. 
From time immemorial he has been re- 
garded as worthless, as one of a class that 
the world would be better off without. 

If this apparently bold assertion be un- 
true, then why have not the thousands and 
thousands of unfortunate boys and girls 
who have been maimed by causes beyond 
their control been shown the same courtesy 
and extended the same hand whose strong 
grasp has pulled more than one hundred 
thousand deaf mutes and over two hundred 
thousand blind persons from the ditch of 
despair in the past two generations in this 
Nation? 

To-day we have more than one hundred 
schools maintained by the various States 
and by organizations for the education 
and industrial training of the deaf, dumb, 
and blind. Thousands of useful citizens 

38 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



have been graduated from these institu- 
tions and sent out into the world equipped 
to fight successfully for existence. Every 
State provides for the education of such 
an afflicted one, be he the child of a mil- 
lionaire or the offspring of a tie-hacker. 

While, on the other hand, we have ap- 
proximately one-half million crippled and 
deformed persons, many of whom are oc- 
cupying high and honored positions in 
public as well as private life, but more of 
whom are dependent upon some relative, 
occupants of some charitable institution, 
or peddlers of shoestrings and beggars on 
the corner. Yet there is no institution that 
will take the poverty-stricken ones from 
this great and rapidly increasing army of 
unfortunates and educate them in arts and 
sciences suited to their physical conditions 
and mental capabilities. If the deaf, the 
dumb and the blind are worth saving in 
their awful conditions of helplessness, why 
are not the paralytics, the hunchbacks, the 
rheumatics, and so on, worth the saving? 

39 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

The Cripples that have money and well- 
to-do folks usually obtain a chance to help 
themselves and invariably do so. 

But all over our fair America there are 
scattered among the hills and the valleys, 
in the congested districts and slums of the 
large cities, in the outskirts of little towns 
and villages, thousands upon thousands of 
little boys and girls with twisted and de- 
formed bodies but sunny dispositions and 
wonderful minds, too poor to go to the 
public schools and in most instances un- 
able to get to the schools, who are daily 
longing and hoping and praying for an 
opportunity to get an education in some 
trade or profession which will enable them 
to become self-supporting in after years 
and which will prevent their finally going 
to the poorhouse and later being laid at 
rest in the dreaded Potter's Field. 

Again the Voice that seemed to preach 
so powerfully to this boy in the midst of the 
f ruit-ladened trees asked, so it would seem : 
"Who would have thought the injured tree 

40 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

was worth saving if it were believed that 
God would deny it the same mission or pur- 
pose with which He fills the others of its 
kind, just because it happens to the ill luck 
of getting injured ?" 

So the question that ought to attack the 
mind of every American citizen is: "Has 
God quit furnishing the Cripples with tal- 
ents and missions? Has He begun to let 
beings come into the world purposeless, 
without a brain worth training, without a 
body worth caring for, without a heart 
worth cheering, without a chance to cope 
with the adverse forces, without a soul 
worth beautifying and saving?" 

If He has, then we might afford to neg- 
lect the welfare of the maimed and suffer- 
ing; but if He has not, if He still gives to 
each being an object in life, it is our bound- 
en duty and trust reposed in us to care for 
them and to see that they have "help in 
order that they may help themselves" to 
become living, pulsating entities in this 
world of activities. 

41 



WHO LOVES THE CRIPPLE? 

AFTER all, love is the greatest thing 
in life. It is the greatest gift of 
God. It is the only thing that does 
not bow to the glimmer of gold or seek 
the shimmer of silver. It possesses much 
that a life of happiness requires and tri- 
umphs in the darkest hours of despair. 
Love soothes pain, silences humiliation, 
strengthens hope, and saves the soul. It 
beautifies life and brings contentment. 
Love is the foundation and the culmination 
of Christianity. It always finds response 
in every heart and soul because of its mys- 
terious power and lovely influence. The 
sacred secret of love lies somewhere in the 
fact that it prompts reciprocity, proffers 
assistance, and shares hardships as well as 
happiness. It was God's love — His desire 
to assist, to save lost humanity — that 
caused Him to give His only-begotten Son 
as a ransom. 

Because a hermit thinks no one loves 

42 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

him, he goes off into seclusion and becomes 
a veritable beast. Because a young girl 
feels that she has been wronged by being 
made the object of unrequited love, she 
ends what is left of her once pure and 
promising life by leaping from some high 
cliff or, worse still, by sinking into the 
slums of shameful sin. The wife who loses 
the love of her erstwhile devoted husband 
becomes a human wreck upon the strand of 
matrimony. The same obtains with a hus- 
band when the case is reversed. No com- 
punction of conscience remains after the 
death of love. For it is when love dies 
that murderers and assassins are born. 
Because the people act as though they do 
not love or care anything for the Cripples 
is why the Cripples feel so humiliated and 
so downhearted and the reason why they 
suffer the untold and indescribable agony 
of the soul. 

Who loves the Cripples? This is an 
awful question to ask of a Christian Na- 
tion ; but it can be answered only one way, 

43 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

and that solitary way is to tell of the 
activities of the strong toward the weak, 
for true love is never idle, as its basic prin- 
ciple is the irresistible desire to help. 
Therefore the answer to this question 
shall be had when the facts are given as 
to what help has been provided for the 
crippled class in contrast with that shown 
to all other classes of needy and suffering 
humanity. 

Yes, a retrospect will better explain and 
answer the apparently foolish and cruel 
question, Who loves the Cripples ? 

Because of the great and beneficent love 
of the Christian people for the souls and 
the education of the heathen in far-away 
lands, thousands of consecrated and cou- 
rageous missionaries have gone thousands 
of miles to the haunts of the savages and 
suffered the terrors of untimely death at 
the hands of those who did not want civili- 
zation introduced. Millions upon millions 
of dollars have been raised in America and 
forwarded to those lands of savagery for 

44 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the purpose of educating them in the glo- 
ries of Western Civilization. 

Because of the wonderful and all-sus- 
taining love for the poor, ignorant, and 
mistreated negro slaves, hundreds of thou- 
sands of lives have been sacrificed and 
billions of dollars expended and whole na- 
tions devastated by the ravages of war in 
order to emancipate them and lighten their 
burdens. 

Because of the noble love and the broad 
sympathy that the people have in the past 
hundred years felt for the unfortunate 
deaf, dumb, and blind persons, millions of 
dollars have been appropriated by the 
State government and donated by individ- 
uals for the erection and perpetuation of 
great educational and industrial institu- 
tions in which these nobly brave ones may 
obtain sufficient mental training to enable 
them to become self-supporting and happy 
citizens, although wanderers in a region 
where neither light nor sound penetrates. 

Because of the paternal love that every 

45 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

one has in his heart for the thousands of 
little fatherless and motherless children, 
hundreds of magnificent orphanages are in 
existence to-day in America. In these in- 
stitutions galore all the little orphan chil- 
dren may find a substitute for what is 
deemed the greatest place in the world — 
home. The Presbyterians, the Methodists, 
the Baptists, and all other great denomina- 
tions have builded these homes in every 
section of the nation. The Masons, the 
Odd Fellows, and other like organizations 
have done likewise. Other societies and 
organizations have joined in the work and 
erected scores of these havens of happi- 
ness, which they are maintaining to the 
glory of God and to the perpetuation of 
love. 

Because every thinking person realizes 
that he is as much responsible for the keep- 
ing of his sister as he is for the keeping of 
his brother, refuge homes are found in 
every city of America, the doors of the 
same always ready to fly wide open at the 

4 6 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

slightest touch of the poor, misguided, and 
wayward girl who has found herself un- 
able to forge forward in her life of sin and 
shame. In these places she may hide her 
blushing face and conceal her tears from 
the cruel and cold stares of the gossiping 
and growling world and open her heart to 
the Almighty in begging for mercy and 
restored health and a new grasp upon a 
life worth while. 

Because of the love and pity of suffering 
and sick humanity on the part of almost 
every one, each and every city and large 
town has hospitals enough to care for ev- 
ery person who finds himself unable to 
hold up any longer under the strain of 
physical and mental anguish. He has no 
fear of dying on the street without proper 
medical attention and kind and helpful 
nursing. 

Because of the deep sympathy, acute 
pity, and godly mercy excited in every hu- 
man breast when the agonized cries of a 
suffering being are heard on the streets, in 

47 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the public places, and in the hovels, num- 
berless homes for the incurables exist in 
the large cities. It is in these places that 
the poor pain-racked human is placed to 
remain until merciful death grants him a 
permanent release from the thralls of 
agony. 

Because of the great love and feeling 
that the people have for the juvenile delin- 
quents cast by fate and misfortune upon 
the streets of our large cities and thrown 
among ten thousand temptations, any one 
of which will hurl a soul to the very 
depths of Hell, the juvenile wards have 
been established and placed under the kind 
and competent supervision of fatherly 
judges and motherly matrons. 

Because of the undying love of the 
masses for those who are mercilessly at- 
tacked and pulled down by tuberculosis and 
cancer and other horribly fatal diseases 
that seem to be ravaging and terrorizing 
this entire Nation, millions of dollars are 
being annually appropriated by the Na- 

48 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

tional and State Governments and by indi- 
viduals for the purpose of attempting to 
stamp out these awful afflictions of the 
people and for providing homes and places 
for treatment. 

Because of the sympathy, pity, and love 
of every one for the old and decrepit folks, 
who have become children of misfortune 
in so far that they have been unable to save 
enough money to provide themselves with 
food and raiment, many old folks' retreats 
are kept up all over the country. 

Because of the pulsation of the true hu- 
man heart, every city has a foundlings' 
home, where little babies that have been 
born out of wedlock or thrown upon the 
public by helpless mothers or left alone in 
the world by various causes may find 
warm cradles and filled bottles until some 
one comes along and adopts them. 

Because of the same eternal love of ev- 
ery human heart, the insane, the paupers, 
the negroes, the waifs, etc., have been well 
provided for in numerous helpful ways. 

4 49 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

In short, every known class of suffering, 
dependent, helpless, and forlorn humanity- 
has been showered with love and shown 
assistance and helped in countless ways to 
bear the burdensome yoke of affliction and 
disease, except the Cripples, who are re- 
garded and treated as worthless, superflu- 
ous humanity. Every sort of people, load- 
ed down by infirmities or overtaken by mis- 
fortune, has been classified and provided 
for as a separate and worthy class, except 
the Cripples, who must either be cared for 
as incurables and placed in hospitals for 
treatment and confinement or accepted and 
recognized as paupers and assigned to the 
poorhouse. 

The Cripples must attend the same 
schools that the strong attend or go uned- 
ucated. They must labor under the most 
painful and discouraging difficulties to 
support themselves or beg for bread on 
the streets and sleep in the alleys. Indeed, 
every one must admit that the Cripples 
compose the one class of human unfortu- 

5o 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



nates that has never been classified and 
recognized by the public in general as a 
particularly and distinctly separate class 
worthy of particular and distinct assist- 
ance. This disgraceful condition has con- 
tinued so long and grown so common that 
it is hardly considered unjust by the ma- 
jority, who never stop to think and reason. 
But the time has arrived when the peo- 
ple must pause to ponder over this unjust- 
ness. They must acknowledge, though 
possibly reluctantly, that they have never 
manifested any real and material love to- 
ward the Cripples as a whole, as they have 
toward all other needy classes. They must 
confess their almost unpardonable neglect 
and admit that nothing more uplifting, 
more helpful, more encouraging has ever 
been shown this crippled class than pity. 
They cannot dispute the fact that they 
have overlooked them, although they may 
find some consolation in the truth that this 
oversight is due to unthoughtedness rath- 
er than to selfishness and hard-hearted- 

51 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ness. For the American people as a nation 
have for generations demonstrated their 
breadth of sympathy and profoundness of 
love, which is characteristic of them, by 
their unstinted action of kindness and mer- 
cy toward all other suffering ones. There- 
fore it would seem that it is only necessary 
to awake them to the imperative demand 
of the crippled class for justice and for a 
deserved recognition, which have been de- 
nied for generations. And it is expedient 
to state here tkat this urgent and just de- 
mand must be granted in time in the form 
of a thorough and modern system of in- 
dustrial education for the Cripples. 

Evidently it does not require a mental 
giant to understand fully what is meant 
when Cripples pathetically ask themselves 
and others if any one loves them. For if 
a person would only consider why this 
question is asked, he would not be so far 
from a thorough understanding. Instant- 
ly he would know that he had never heard 
once in his life of lives being sacrificed 

5^ 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

upon the field of battle for the love and 
defense of the Cripples. He would know 
that he had never read in history or paper 
where billions of dollars had been expend- 
ed for their education, as have been spent 
for the education of all other classes. He 
would recall the fact that never in his life 
had he seen and admired mighty institu- 
tions in the superb forms of universities, 
colleges, and industrial schools for the ben- 
efit of the Cripples. He would remember 
also that he had never belonged to any 
Church or lodge that paid any special at- 
tention to the Cripples. All that he can 
think of is that he has constantly seen 
hundreds of Cripples absolutely unable to 
provide food and clothing for themselves 
and existing as beggars on the streets or 
living ofif of beggarly sums from the sale 
of pins, needles, and pencils. And, too, he 
can recall that he has witnessed heartrend- 
ing sights of them occupying filthy and 
hellish stalls in poorhouses because of no 
people to help them and because they were 

53 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

not fitted to fight the battles of life. More- 
over, he can easily recollect the fact that 
he has seen numerous board slabs in the 
edge of the cemeteries marking the last 
resting places of those buried at the ex- 
pense of the county or the citizens. All 
these things he can convert into a good 
reason why this important but pathetic 
question is asked and why it does not seem 
so foolish and absurd as the casual thinker 
would have it. He will readily agree that 
the Cripples are wholly justifiable when 
they conclude that the world loves them 
not — not nearly so much as it does the 
Heathen, the Negro, the Illegitimate, the 
Orphan, the Insane, and the Mute. 

Does it seem that it is leading a forlorn 
hope for one to pray and plead for the im- 
mediate change of this awful and unjust 
condition confronting the Cripples of 
America when one can see so many help- 
ful things that the good people have done 
for all other classes of suffering human- 
ity ? Or does it seem an idle dream ? 

54 



SHALL WE EDUCATE OR EXTER- 
MINATE THE CRIPPLE f 

MY blood boils with indignation 
when I peruse the blood-stained 
pages of Ancient History. I 
am stricken with horror when I read of 
the Spartans 5 unpardonable and barba- 
rous practice of murdering the little weak- 
lings that, unfortunately, made their un- 
welcomed appearance at a time when mus- 
cle was placed above morality, when phy- 
sique was more important than mind. 

As though it were only yesterday, in my 
fancy I can see the little misshapen weak- 
ling forcibly torn from its loving mother's 
breast and carried before a body of phys- 
ical giants, whose duty it was to examine 
and pronounce the infant sufficiently sym- 
metrical in body to live or to condemn it to 
death on account of its frailty. I can see 
its devoted mother cover its tiny and twist- 
ed form with kisses and bathe it with scald- 
ing tears, and I can hear her sweetly croon 

55 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the last lullaby as it is taken from her 
bosom and carried to the hellish place 
known as the Exposure, a glen on the side 
of Mount Taygetus, where it will be left 
alone; where its little weak cry will reach 
no responsive voice or listening ear ; where 
its little tongue will swell from thirst and 
choke it to death for want of its mother's 
milk; where, finally, its little soul will be 
hurled into eternity, pure, undefiled, and 
without sin, where its tiny, deformed body 
will erelong be rent into pieces and de- 
voured by countless carrion crows. 

Such a mental picture which once exist- 
ed in reality is enough to pale one's face 
and to pierce one's heart — enough to pen- 
etrate the soul and produce an impres- 
sion thereon that will endure throughout 
life. 

It was earnestly believed in those days 
that if a child did not start in possession of 
health and strength it was better both for 
itself and for the State that it should not 
live at all. In other words, the father had 

56 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

not the right of bringing up his own child, 
but had to carry it at birth to a designated 
place where the leaders of the tribe or clan 
sat in judgment. The child would be ex- 
amined rigidly, and if found bodily perfect 
a tract of public land was alloted to it ; but 
in case it turned out to be a weakling, im- 
mediate starvation and death were pro- 
nounced. Those that were allowed their 
lives were reared uneducated in dirt and 
filth and trained with but one view in mind 
— to obey, endure, and win fights. 

Those were the unsightly and unsound 
conditions of affairs in Sparta 700 to 500 
B.C. Similar conditions existed in olden 
days in many other countries. But Civi- 
lization and Christianity soon came and 
put a stop to the abominable custom and 
practice. Both restrained the parents 
from even contemplating such a damnable 
and dastardly deed. The laws of the land 
avenged it. 

But for the unfortunate child, in point 
of its own welfare and happiness, which is 

57 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the better and more humane way — to send 
it back to its Creator as innocent and pure 
as it came, or to let it live only to be neg- 
lected, unrecognized by its country, unpro- 
vided for by laws of the land, unassisted 
by the Christian and Fraternal organiza- 
tions — to suffer, to starve, to pray, to hope, 
and, last, to succumb after a life of dis- 
couragement, embarrassment, and failure ? 

Instantly one can easily see which course 
would save the child from a period of pain- 
ful struggle and protect it from an exist- 
ence of unpardonable and almost unbear- 
able ostracism from the circles of society 
and from the other places provided for the 
children of men. 

But where is the man who would sug- 
gest such a dastardly and damnable crime ? 
Where is the human brute who would be 
so brazen as to say that the hellish custom 
of the Spartans should be introduced in the 
Nation that stands at the head of all oth- 
ers and that the helpless babes born with 
weaknesses should be forcibly taken from 

58 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the parents by the law and sent hurling 
into Eternity without a single chance at 
life — without a chance to enjoy and appre- 
ciate the all-sustaining beauties that the 
Almighty has blessed this world with? 
Oh! where is the father who would sub- 
mit himself to the low and despotic de- 
mands of a body of brutes who wished to 
judge his offspring and condemn it to 
death for infirmities and physical defects 
inherited? Ah! it is great that one can 
feel and say with a certainty that no such 
heartless and faithless father lives in 
America to-day and that no such criminal 
custom would be tolerated for one mo- 
ment. 

But, however bad as it may seem and 
foolish as it may be, the truth must be told 
about people whether or not we admire 
them. Therefore the heartless, half-civi- 
lized Spartans and their kind were more 
consistent in their views concerning per- 
fect manhood and their method of obtain- 
ing such than are we of this age of Chris- 

59 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

tian and intellectual endeavor. History- 
may be adduced to sustain this bold asser- 
tion. 

A bold contrast results when the consist- 
ency of the Spartans is mentioned in con- 
nection with what some may think is con- 
sistent on the part of the Americans to- 
day. 

In Sparta physical strength and power 
were the foundation and the culmination 
of all manhood. In America mental power 
and moral strength constitute the most im- 
portant and major requisites of manhood. 

In Sparta it was consistently contended 
that a man who could not endure hard- 
ships and suffering incident to war was 
not a fit citizen and therefore need not live. 
In America it is held that an unfit subject 
is he who is not mentally proficient or 
morally trustworthy. 

There and then the standard of citizen- 
ship rested on muscular manhood. Here 
and now the standard of citizenship is 
placed on mental and moral manhood. 

60 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

In Sparta, in order to perpetuate this 
standard, no one who could fail to reach 
this gauge was allowed to live. In Amer- 
ica every one is allowed life, regardless of 
whether such privilege dims the luster or 
decreases the value of the standard. 

In Sparta those who were allowed life 
were educated and trained perfectly in 
such manner as would enable them to keep 
on the level with the standard. In Amer- 
ica discrimination and neglect prevent 
many persons from reaching the lowest 
rungs of this wonderfully beautiful stand- 
ard of good citizenship. 

And the one class that is so conspicuous 
for its position beneath the bottom rung 
of this standard of mental and moral man- 
hood of this Nation is no other than the 
class that is known as useless, burdensome, 
and bothersome humanity — the Cripples. 

Consequently the inconsistency of the 
American people in regard to their action 
toward the Cripples is as evident as the 
consistency of the Spartans toward those 

61 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

of the same condition whom they mur- 
dered because of their infirmities and their 
inability to reach the standard of manhood 
in existence in that age and country. . 

The noble standard formed and adopted 
by Civilization and Christianity is broad 
enough and long enough to encompass ev- 
ery person of mental strength and moral 
manhood. But the entire number of per- 
sons of to-day does not conform with the 
set standard as a whole, as was the case in 
the days of Spartan glory. This incon- 
formity is due to the fact that the Ameri- 
can people allow every one his life, but 
fail to train him and care for him in edu- 
cational and cultural ways, as did the war- 
riors of old train and harden their young 
with physical culture. 

Thus it is obvious that there were more 
persons in the dim and distant past that 
were in full and perfect accord with the 
standard of the day than can be found at 
the present time. One would fail to get 
recognition or encouragement should one 

62 ' 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

at this day and time declare that infants 
should be exposed to the elements and 
killed for unavoidable weaknesses, as was 
the custom in the days when it was nec- 
essary and consistent to do so in order to 
keep up the standard of useful and capa- 
ble citizenry. Yet we of to-day allow each 
weakling its life but fail in after years to 
put forth the slightest effort to educate it 
and train it that it may become worthy of 
the seemingly just standard. If it be a 
paralytic, if it be a victim of some other 
terrible and disabling disease, if it be de- 
formed at birth to the extent that it has no 
arms or legs and so on, it matters not how 
deplorably so, it will be shown no atten- 
tion at all other than empty pity by the 
Churches and by the State and by the va- 
rious Lodges. 

When I make the assertion that the 
Cripples are not regarded or recognized by 
the public as real, vibrating humans, the 
same as other humans, I mean and include 
the whole class of unfortunates. I do not 

63 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

have in mind the crippled son or daughter 
of the millionaire or of the wealthy. No, 
I do not have in mind the crippled child 
that has well-to-do parents or relatives 
able to give it the advantage that love and 
money can afford. But I mean instead the 
half million poor boys and girls in the for- 
ty-eight States who are hampered, ha- 
rassed, and handicapped by physical de- 
fects and shortcomings — boys and girls 
who have but one single hope of ever 
amounting to anything at all — and that 
hope is based upon their poor chance of 
getting a thorough mental training in 
lines suited to their capabilities. I mean 
the half million boys and girls who, 
through the decree of fate, have been put 
here and denied the blessings of normal 
use of their withered and drawn limbs, 
who will in time, if not trained and looked 
after now, bear themselves helplessly down 
upon the overburdened shoulders of char- 
ity as unsightly objects of aversion and 
disgust to society. 

6 4 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



And think that these same persons could 
become useful and happy citizens if a just 
chance and deserved attention were only- 
given them by the State and the people ! 

The assertion that the majority of the 
Cripples of the present generation will be- 
come, under the present mode of treatment, 
subjects of charity, burdens to the State 
and cities, and objects of pity, is not ill 
founded, nor is it based upon a prophetic 
view of the author. To get positive proof 
of the deduction it is only necessary to go 
out and look about. You will invariably 
see countless Cripples living lives of utter 
helplessness and depending upon the mites 
thrown at their feet by the disgusted pass- 
ers-by or subsisting upon their income 
from the sale of trinkets. Meeting, as I 
do, hundreds of Cripples in the course of a 
year, I am not uneasy of being successfully 
contradicted when I say that the greater 
number of crippled beggars are such by 
compulsion rather than by choice. They 
will truthfully tell you, when you question 
5 65 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

them as to why they are not holding re- 
spectable positions instead of hobbling 
over the country in search of bread, that 
it is because they have no mental training 
sufficient to do any kind of work and that 
it is beyond their power to do any sort of 
physical or manual labor. They will tell 
you that if they had been educated as well 
as their deaf, dumb, and blind brothers, or 
even as well as the heathen in far-away 
Africa or Korea, or as thoroughly as the 
negro of this country, they would not be 
compelled to fight the foilings of fate by 
having to face the wintry blasts or endure 
the torturous summer heat in an almost 
futile efifort to live their allotted time, 
which God intends all men to live regard- 
less of their physical, moral, or financial 
conditions. 

Thus it is perfectly safe and sound to 
say that, unless the approximate half 
million crippled children of this Nation, 
who have not a way to attend the regular 
universities, colleges, and schools, are edu- 

66 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

cated, the avenues of society are certain to 
be overrun in a few years by more pitiable 
persons than these avenues can accommo- 
date. 

Then what greater honor, what greater 
glory, what greater work can mortal man 
find to do this day and time than the work 
that will eventually alleviate this terrible 
and unjust condition, which has enslaved 
more free-borns and murdered more noble 
ambitions and broken more hopeful hearts 
and shattered more hopes and humiliated 
more beings than that sort of bondage that 
two million men fought and bled to elimi- 
nate? 

It cannot be long until the American 
people and legislators will awake to see 
the responsibilities clustering about them 
and will hasten to unite and put forth con- 
certed efforts toward rectifying the error 
that has endured so long. 

And when that day comes the American 
people may well afford to say that they 
have surpassed the old Spartans in consist- 

6 7 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ently upholding and upbuilding the stable 
standard of citizenship upon which this 
Nation as well as all others must hope to 
rest and build. 

The Spartans became murderers in or- 
der to perpetuate their standard of perfect 
manhood and to populate their nation with 
physical giants. The Americans have be- 
come murderers, so to speak, in order to 
educate the negro and Christianize and 
clothe the millions of heathen and to 
erect cold, lifeless monuments of marble to 
commemorate the memory of our beloved 
generals and soldiers who fought, bled, 
and died to free those enthralled by a yoke 
of slavery that never had the terror nor 
the horror nor the awfulness that the slav- 
ery of the crippled class has. 

The Spartans murdered by taking life ; 
the Americans murder by taking all the 
hopes, ambitions, and aspirations of life — 
which means a more dreadful death than 
that which is summoned from over the 

68 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



black and unfathomable stream of mys- 
tery. 

To live does not mean to breathe. It 
means a vibrating, pulsating, and creating 
existence of that which is worth while, 
which is helpful to others, and which is 
worthy of emulation. How many Crip- 
ples live ? How many exist ? 

Therefore, the burning question of the 
day is : "Shall we educate the Cripples or 
exterminate them?" 

As it is now, we most certainly are ex- 
terminating all that they possess and prize. 
And it is not very evident, if at all, that 
we are ahead of the Spartans in some very 
important things. 

6 9 



THE MISSION OF THE CRIPPLE. 

JUST as strongly as I believe that God 
endows every one with a talent, so 
I believe He gives every one a mis- 
sion. I cannot believe that any one is 
placed here to exist as a human parasite. 

If the trees, the soil, the rocks, the flow- 
ers, and the grasses have a purpose, a 
Godly divined and decreed mission, crea- 
tions of only one element, matter, why 
have not they who are created of three 
elements — matter, mind, and soul — created 
in His own image, just a little lower than 
the angels on high, although crippled, de- 
formed, and incapacitated ? 

Can it be true that a loving, merciful, 
and just God gives to the lower or lesser 
creations preeminence over the higher cre- 
ations because the higher ones happen to 
be distorted and disabled beyond direct 
control? Can it be true that a live but 
gnarled tree may lend its share of shade 
and fragrance to the air and surroundings 

70 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

and that a deformed or crippled human 
cannot lend his share of good deeds to hu- 
manity and to God ? 

Such would be the condition were it true 
that the Cripples have no mission other 
than to suffer pain, embarrassment, and 
ofttimes social ostracism. But, thanks to 
the Almighty, such is not true ! For God 
in the beginning wisely decreed that ev- 
erything should have a part in the fulfill- 
ment of the Divine Plan. 

I may be wrong when I say that there 
is no one so badly afflicted but that he 
could do something worth while. But 
when I read in history of the great and 
noble men and women who were blind or 
crippled or deformed or handicapped by 
physical infirmity and who, notwithstand- 
ing all these obstacles, worked diligently 
and faithfully to do some good work and 
to leave to the succeeding generations their 
names and labors as imperishable gifts of 
God presented through the hands of man, 
I am constrained to make my assertion 

7i 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

even stronger and broader. I sometimes 
feel as if I should be correct were I to say- 
that the afflicted, physically, can do more 
than the strong. 

However, I shall not make such an as- 
sertion ; but, instead, I shall say that some 
of the greatest battles ever fought by indi- 
viduals have been fought by the crippled 
or afflicted, and that some of the greatest 
victories ever won have been won by them. 
I can say this much and can adduce his- 
tory to sustain me. 

Because any one is denied the use of his 
limbs for walking or even his arms and 
hands, it is not reasonable nor sensible for 
one to think or say that a person thus af- 
flicted will never be able to support himself 
or help others in this world. For God 
puts not a single one here to live purpose- 
less. He has a work for all to do and 
expects all to make blessings out of mis- 
fortune — to transform shade into sun- 
shine. 

For example, Tom Lockhart, the shut- 

72 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

in, who died last year and who was known 
the world over by the reading public, 
could use no part of his terribly afflicted 
body save the thumb and forefinger of the 
right hand. The sight of one eye was en- 
tirely gone, that of the other very nearly 
so; his joints were stiffened and ossified, 
and he lay in one awful position for more 
than twenty-five years, during which time 
his body became as a stone statue. Yet 
this hero of heavenly patience supported 
himself and his nurse by laboriously and 
painfully scribbling a few lines daily, ev- 
ery one of which contained a message of 
cheer, a message filled to overflowing 
with the wondrous and infinite love of a 
suffering, consecrated Christian. He not 
only provided for himself by writing, but 
also made thousands happier and more 
cheerful, thankful and more contented. 
He had a mission. He fulfilled it. He 
did more for the world and for humanity 
than millions who had health and strength 
but never found their object in life. And 

73 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the beautiful part of his case is that he was 
not the only one that ever did any good for 
the world while in an invalid's place; for 
to-day there are thousands, similarly and 
sorely afflicted, who are proving that they 
have a mission — a work to do — and that 
they are capable of performing the task. 

74 



THE AMBITION OF THE CRIPPLE. 

AMBITION is the backbone of true 
hope — that sort of hope which sus- 
tains one through all the discour- 
aging ordeals and periods of one's life 
and ofttimes crowns one with garlands of 
success. It is not only the shining star 
that guides, but also the beautiful one that 
beckons. Its full realization is undoubt- 
edly the crowning point of one's life. It 
was Paul's realized ambition that prompt- 
ed him to say, as he neared the end of his 
earthly career, that he had fought a good 
fight, had finished the course, and had kept 
the faith that was in him. The progress 
of humanity from the dawn of creation is 
nothing more than the ripened fruit of 
ambition. The biographies of the world's 
greatest benefactors would not thrill us, 
but instead would be cold and uninterest- 
ing, were they not fraught with the un- 
daunted struggles and wonderful triumphs 
of ambition. 

75 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

Thus it is exceedingly plain how impor- 
tant, how valuable, how necessary is am- 
bition to one's life. 

Real ambition cannot endure without 
the association of true hope. Hence am- 
bition and hope are interdependent. Nei- 
ther is ambition foreign to one's nature 
and possibilities. In other words, it is 
not natural for one to desire the unattain- 
able—to long for that which is far beyond 
the pale of probability. The peasant 
should not be so overly ambitious as to 
want to devise a means of injecting royal 
blood into his own veins in order to be- 
come great. Such would be foolish and 
impossible ; but it is not impossible for him 
to become great. Moreover, ambition of 
the right sort gives man the happy faculty 
of adapting himself to the circumstances 
that surround him. No intelligent weak- 
ling, for example, ever has the burning 
ambition to become a prizefighter and 
wear the belt of the world's championship. 

7 6 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

Why? Because it is unattainable, impos- 
sible. 

Therefore the real point is about to be 
reached. The Cripple, whose physical 
condition makes him realize fully his im- 
perfection, his utter inability to cope suc- 
cessfully with the strong in physical pur- 
suits, has an ambition for achievements 
within his power and reach, which ambi- 
tion is greater in scope, greater in possi- 
bility, greater in value than that of the 
strong in proportion to the strength of 
mind and muscle. 

To illustrate : If a young lady artist has 
an ambition to take a prize in an art con- 
test with several strong young men, and if 
her production equals in every way that of 
any one of them, a tie should not be called 
by the judges, but the prize should be 
awarded to her, in view of the fact that 
she labored more handicapped from the 
standpoint of strength. In other words, 
when a woman equals a man, she sur- 
passes him. When a thousand-pound 

77 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

horse pulls as much as a two-thousand- 
pound horse, the former surpasses by far, 
yet it does no more actual work. 

Ambition is also a mental state. Hence 
it is obvious that the same is more acute 
with the crippled person. For, as Spencer 
remarks, no powers crave exercise so much 
as the higher powers. Thus the crippled 
fellow's ambition is to cultivate and exer- 
cise his mental powers, inasmuch as his 
physical ones are not in such condition as 
will respond to like attention. 

Therefore the pivot upon which rests 
the probable realization of a Cripple's 
ambition is EDUCATION. It is educa- 
tion that he is longing for ; it is education 
that will deaden the stings of his deplor- 
able condition; it is education that will 
alleviate his mental suffering and cramp- 
ing; it is education that will fulfill his 
dreams of a happy life in the Valley of 
Sorrow ; it is education that will help him 
to realize his ambition to be of some use 
to humanity and to God; it is education 

78 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



that will eventually lead him to become 
reconciled to the foilings of fate and to 
peer through the rift in the clouds of ad- 
versity at the rays of shining success 
awaiting him. 

Then to deny him this needed and de- 
sired education is to murder his ambition ; 
and to do this is to blight his life irrepa- 
rably. It is to rob him of the one hope with 
which the Creator has filled his soul; for 
this single and sacred hope is based upon 
the use of his mentality, which must be 
trained and strengthened in order to coun- 
teract the deficiency of his physique. 

But where can the necessary mental 
training for the afflicted boys and girls be 
had ? Have the various States in this Na- 
tion made any provision for these afflicted 
children? No. They have provided the 
Public School System only, which great 
system was conceived and established for 
the able-bodied. The Cripples are in the 
minority, you will probably say, and for 
that reason no attention has been shown 

79 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

them. The fact is well known that there 
are more crippled fellows in every neigh- 
borhood than blind, deaf, and dumb; yet 
the States all have seen that the last-named 
unfortunates have been cared for and 
fitted for life. The "minority" excuse 
cannot stand as an argument or be of- 
fered wisely as a real excuse or explana- 
tion. True enough it is that a Cripple 
may attend any one of these schools that 
compose the great system of popular 
education, if the Cripple can get to the 
school and can manage to put up with and 
endure the facilities and conveniences in- 
stituted and planned primarily for the 
strong and well. In every State there are 
hundreds of children, so badly afflicted 
by various diseases, who are absolutely 
unable, both financially and physically, to 
go daily from their humble homes to the 
public schools, which in most instances are 
overflowing with a strong and healthy 
student body. And in case they do get 
there, what comforts are provided ? There 

80 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

are the long flights of steep stairways; 
there are the high blackboards; there are 
the elevated platforms, stages, and so on; 
the inaccessible lavatories and toilets, the 
custom of going continually from one 
room to another to recite lessons, the 
giantlike steps at the entrance of the 
building, and a thousand and one other 
things which, at the moment the crippled 
pupil gets in sight of the school, confront 
him with appalling and embarrassing 
magnitude. Anything he is called upon 
by the teacher to do, he must do it as the 
others do or not at all. Hence he, more 
or less, is left entirely out of the practices, 
experiments, and drills. 

Although he is a native of the State and 
the Country, although the same Caucasian 
blood of red corpuscles flows in his veins, 
although his heart is filled and thrilled and 
exuberant with worthy ambition and his 
soul is as pure and as noble and as emula- 
tive as those of his comrades, if comrades 
they can be called, the crippled boy who 
6 81 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

attends a public school is in a sense a for- 
eigner. He is never allowed his naturali- 
zation papers, because he can never be nat- 
uralized sufficiently to assume allegiance to 
the routine of practice and play common to 
this sort of school. Even the sports and 
games mapped out by the other students 
for the year of playground activities are 
uninviting to him in his abnormal condi- 
tion. No ball games for him, no marble 
games for him, no "foot and a half" for 
him — nothing for him but ostracism ! He 
is alone in everything and almost every- 
where. He is made conspicuous on ac- 
count of his helplessness when the recess 
bell taps. Shunned and passed by on ev- 
ery hand by the crowd of children, who 
are enthused to the highest degree over a 
game of ball, the crippled lad lingers in 
the shade and watches the rest at a dis- 
tance enjoying all that goes to make the 
life of a youth worth while and happy, his 
face tense and his fist clenched, uncon- 
scious at the moment of his utter helpless- 

82 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



ness, the while feeling or imagining him- 
self among the bunch and excelling the 
best player. A straggler comes by on his 
way to the scene of merriment and, notic- 
ing this particular and pitiable lad sitting 
alone near the schoolhouse and surround- 
ed by his loneliness, awakes the unfortu- 
nate from his moment of forgetfulness by 
asking the cruel and cutting question: 
"Don't you wish you could go too ?" 

But where can the Cripples get relief? 
Have the religious denominations expend- 
ed any money establishing schools and 
colleges for their special benefit? Have 
these same denominations divided or ap- 
propriated even a small portion of the mil- 
lions collected for foreign mission work 
and used it toward educating the thou- 
sands of Cripples here at our very door- 
step and beautifying and utilizing their 
lives? Have the Christian people ever 
made any great effort or started any wide- 
spread move toward preventing this un- 
fortunate class of ill-fated humanity from 

83 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

becoming dependent by helping them to 
become independent? 

Again I ask, Where may the Cripples 
find relief or help? Have the numerous 
secret orders and fraternities and the like 
provided for this sorely needed and long- 
sought relief ? Have they ever spent any 
money toward erecting and maintaining 
a perpetual or temporary institution, or 
even an experimental one, by which the 
Cripples may become more hopeful of the 
future, when they shall be thrown out 
upon their own resources or upon the 
shoulders of charity? No; instead they 
have builded million-dollar clubhouses 
and erected hundred-thousand-dollar mon- 
uments of sculptured marble to satisfy the 
selfish, aesthetic propensities of thoughtless 
humanity. 

And as a direct and immediate result of 
this awful and heartless neglect, of this 
terrible condition void of one iota of good, 
thousands of noble ambitions and cher- 

8 4 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ished dreams are daily atrophying, dying, 
never to be realized. 

It is beyond the power of the human 
mind to understand fully the pathos of 
unrealized ambition, unless one has drunk 
from the gourd of failure or has been pre- 
vented from doing one's mission in life by 
the neglect of others, who were in a posi- 
tion to lend an assisting hand at a moment 
when all depended upon it. And it is still 
more bitter if one's unmaterialized hopes 
cause one to be thrown upon the public as 
a helpless object of dependence. 

But such is the case in thousands of in- 
stances to-day in fair and Christian 
America. There are countless persons 
with bright minds and wonderful talents 
whose lives are being blighted and dark- 
ened and whose possibilities are being 
poisoned to death by the cold and indiffer- 
ent manner manifested toward them by the 
strong and well who believe that genius 
never comes in the minds of those who 
are twisted, gnarled, and deformed. The 

85 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

strong seem to shut their eyes to the pages 
of history, which are full of accounts 
of successes of remarkable magnitude 
achieved under difficulties so severe, and 
refuse, heartlessly and without reason, to 
acknowledge that a Cripple deserves and 
that Justice demands more than mere pity. 

Yes, it would seem that the strong have 
never awakened to the fact that Justice 
demands a perfect revolution or a change 
of the conditions that confront and appall 
the Cripples throughout this land, and that 
this imperative demand must soon be com- 
plied with. 

This very day the United States can 
furnish very nearly a half million living 
examples of starving ambition. In thou- 
sands of humble hovels occupied as homes 
there can be found many discouraged 
hearts which have been tenderly and 
sacredly nurturing hopes that have at last 
grown forlorn. 

Thousands of these noble, worthy, but 
terribly discouraged hearts pulsate beneath 

86 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the bosoms of pure, ambitious, and God- 
fearing young folks whose lifelong dreams 
have been to become artists, architects, 
journalists, pedagogues, jewelers, book- 
keepers, stenographers, and a hundred oth- 
er things that can be accomplished success- 
fully by persons crippled in various ways — 
whose fondest and most cherished hopes 
have always been that some way might be 
found or devised whereby they might de- 
velop their talents, whose burning ambi- 
tions have been ignited and kindled by a 
constant and powerful desire to fulfill what 
God has led them to believe is their mission 
in life. They are not living under delu- 
sions that lead them to believe they have 
a mission and talent. They only know 
that their souls are afire with ambition to 
do something worth while in life, and, 
above all, to be independent when it comes 
to getting their bread and meat. Truly 
they are children of misfortune, born and 
bred but not educated in a land where the 
precepts of Christ are preached and taught 

87 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

on every hand, but apparently rarely fol- 
lowed and lived up to. 

As their sore afflictions and financial 
condition prevent their obtaining that nec- 
essary exercise of the higher powers which 
holds in its grasp the realization of their 
ambitions, so likewise the same obstacles 
and troubles face every other poor crip- 
pled boy and girl of this land, refusing and 
denying them all that they long for in this 
life. 

No one will doubt that God directs real 
and true ambition. The record of Christ's 
Disciples shows plainly that they had a 
potent ambition to do as they were com- 
manded and to effect results in behalf of 
their chosen work. He directs ambition 
just as He does all else that is best for 
the individual. He instills in the soul and 
the heart of the Cripple just as much am- 
bition as He allows the strong to possess. 
He dictates to the heart of the helpless, 
struggling one an ambition that is perfect- 
ly attainable in every way and does not 

88 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

pervade the said heart with an aim or de- 
sire that is beyond the realm of reason. 
Moreover, He expects the Cripple to make 
use of the ambitious motive, and He ex- 
pects, further, his strong brother to help 
him accomplish the same. 

Then why have not the preachers and 
the politicians seen all this, which they 
can but admit is true, and rushed to the 
rescue of the perishing ambitions, just as 
they have seen the needs of the people, 
both civilized and uncivilized, in a thou- 
sand other ways, and gone to their immedi- 
ate assistance? Why have not the people 
who pose as the backbone of the Christian 
move that is certainly sweeping this Nation 
discovered the effects of this unjust educa- 
tional system and remedied it ? It will be 
difficult to concoct a consistent answer to 
these questions, which are asked earnestly 
by a half million physical slaves. 

8 9 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE 
CRIPPLE. 

IT would seem to almost everybody that 
every important phase concerning the 
circles of society, the welfare and 
progress of the State, and the happiness of 
the individual has been discussed thor- 
oughly all over these United States by peo- 
ple eager to contribute to the upbuilding 
of the country and to the helping of hu- 
manity — every phase except one — the pos- 
sibilities of the Cripple. 

And it is directly due to this single ex- 
ception that the unfortunate Cripple is ap- 
parently, and ofttimes literally, doomed to 
a dismal and daunted life of worthlessness, 
of suffering, and of dependence. 

To-day one hears on every hand, from 
people of intelligence, that languid ques- 
tion, "What's the use of doing anything 
for the Cripple? He is so helpless and 
useless in this life." And although this 
reiteration of this mean and medieval no- 

90 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

tion of physical deformity being a curse 
sent by God is so very discouraging to the 
few, who have seen the mistake and are 
laboring and praying to rectify it, there 
is to offset it the firm realization of its 
utter untruth; for in reality the average 
Cripple, with proper and just care and in- 
struction, has the same possibilities as his 
normal and straight-limbed brother. The 
educated Cripple, in many historical in- 
stances, has proved his possibilities greater 
by far than those with whom he grew up 
and who were his superiors physically. 

The few know of these unlimited possi- 
bilities of the handicapped, but the prob- 
lem which looks so difficult is that of con- 
vincing the masses of the facts. But what 
problem worthy of our attention is not 
difficult to get before the majority? It 
took centuries of agitation before the 
world awoke to the horrors of religious 
persecution and made free all religious 
views. It took centuries to prove that 
slavery was wrong, and it has taken cen- 

91 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

turies to establish and spread Christianity 
over the world. Everything of import re- 
quires time to get well established. 

But in this age of enlightenment, when 
the power of the press has reached a posi- 
tion never before known in the realms of 
newspaperdom, when Christianity has be- 
come the keystone of the Nation's pride, 
when all the States are striving to better 
the bad conditions of their respective citi- 
zens, when the august legislative bodies 
are ever ready to enact laws and adopt oth- 
er means to help the commonwealth along 
- — in this age it would not seem a very 
difficult problem on its face to get the 
masses awakened to the great possibilities 
of that part of the citizenship that in the 
past and at the present has been and is 
allowed to exist in an undeveloped state 
and in a condition of helplessness and as 
a shocking horror to society. 

When given an opportunity of an ed- 
ucation, the average crippled child em- 
braces it with avidity. To him school 

92 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



work seems a boon instead of a burden, 
because probably he has been denied prac- 
tically every other normal activity. With 
the consequently intensified application 
comes correspondingly improved results, 
and in schools where the crippled pupil has 
been enabled to go and be classified with 
the normal ones we find that the former, 
although physically handicapped, has made 
as rapid progress as those unhampered 
by bodily defect. 

The possibilities of the crippled fellow 
are as unlimited in industrial lines as in 
mental; for one can quite often find en- 
couraging examples of Cripples — "hope- 
less Cripples" — making marked success. 
In fact, Cripples of unusual ability are fre- 
quently found in all professions. The 
greatest electrician in the United States is 
a Cripple, and there are many architects, 
artists, and even engineers of note who 
are physically deformed or hampered. 

These instances are given for the sole 
reason that the idea of a Cripple's possi- 

93 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

bilities is not based upon theory alone. 
They are given to prove the assertion that 
all the Cripples need is industrial training, 
just as is given to all other classes of hu- 
man unfortunates by the various State and 
private schools. 

History to-day would not reveal one 
single record of success achieved by a 
Cripple if not a single Cripple had ever 
been given an education. Then it would 
have sounded more stable to assert that 
their possibilities were meager. If the 
great electricians, the great architects, the 
wonderful writers, the statesmen, and the 
men in all walks of life had not been for- 
tunate enough to obtain a thorough men- 
tal and industrial training, no one would 
have ever believed that a Cripple was 
worth the salt that his system requires. 

But, thank God, we have men whose 
names and works will live to the end of 
eternity, who labored and made themselves 
successes in spite of their awful affliction. 
The Disciple Paul was no other than a 

94 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

terrible hunchback — so badly afflicted in 
many ways that he never thought it right 
to wed. His preaching has been the inex- 
haustible inspiration to millions and has 
been the safeguard of Christianity. He 
does not stand alone as a benefactor to the 
world, as a personage of greatness in the 
form of an afflicted one. There are others 
of the past and many of the present whose 
names and works will live forever and 
forever; and there have been millions 
who died the terrible and unmourned death 
of a Cripple, who might have been some- 
thing if they only could have had help to 
help themselves. The fight that shall be 
waged the next few years will result in 
such an overwhelming victory that the 
Cripples of the Twentieth Century shall 
have no cause or reason to say that they 
have been neglected as has the present 
generation in educational directions. 

For the politicians and the preachers 
will readily grasp the truth and will also 
come to a realization that the afflicted are 

95 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

not nils in this world of action by the de- 
cree of the Almighty, but instead are made 
so by the thoughtlessness and heartless- 
ness that have existed among the people 
in general. The press has already taken 
it up and is sowing the seeds that will soon 
germinate and produce something great 
enough and convincing enough to encour- 
age speedy action by Church and State. 

And when this is done there will be 
fewer crippled and homeless beggars on 
the streets and the highways, and there 
will be more citizens of independence and 
worth, though crippled. There will be less 
misery and unhappiness and more cheer- 
fulness and contentment. Charity will 
then have to direct itself and its great help 
in other directions; for the Cripples will 
have learned in the great State and private 
institutions provided for them that they 
will not be tolerated longer as beggars 
and that they have been made independent. 
There will be inculcated into them the fact 
that they possess real and substantial pride 

9 6 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

and that they must not necessarily kneel 
before the feet of any one except their 
God — that they will be disgraced if they 
ask for alms or offer such wares as shoe 
strings for sale. 

No doubt many people have argued that 
they have seen crippled fellows on the 
street begging who were physically able to 
learn a trade and support themselves there- 
by. This is true in many instances, but 
the majority have been crippled in later 
years, crippled as a result of hopping 
trains and being somewhat adventure- 
some, and the minority have no education 
— and hence no pride. 

Every person who knows what educa- 
tion means will agree with this explana- 
tion : Take two strong and normal boys at 
six years of age ; put one in the school and 
the other on the street ; keep one in school 
until he is grown and let the other remain 
on the streets and in the alleys. Which 
one is more independent and has more 
pride at the age of twenty-one? Which 

7 97 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

one will go to the back door for a "hand- 
out" without making almost superhuman 
efforts toward self-support? 

The same condition holds good with a 
crippled boy. If you educate him and cul- 
tivate that innate pride, he will commit 
suicide before he will beg; keep him un- 
educated, and he will have no pride, nor 
will he be humiliated when he begs one 
for a penny or a bite of bread. 

Therefore education will eliminate to a 
great degree the crippled beggars and will 
better the citizenry of the community. 

The first step to take to prove that* a 
Cripple has a chance in life, if given a 
chance, is to show conclusively that his 
handicaps along even more than one line 
do not impair the efficiency of his other 
faculties. A crippled girl may not be 
physically able to stand on her feet all 
day as a clerk in a dry goods store or even 
act as an assistant in an office, but she can 
easily be taught to paint and to embroider 
very beautifully or to teach, to write, and 

98 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

to do a score of other honorable and re- 
munerative works that will make her in- 
dependent as well as happy and cheerful. 
A boy whose deformity may prevent his 
being a carpenter or make him unfit for 
cabinet work may become a skillful jew- 
eler or a brilliant lawyer or writer and so 
on. Thus it is very evident that the latent 
possibilities of a Cripple can be brought 
out simply through intelligent and proper 
direction of activity and talent. 

And why should it be difficult to con- 
vince the masses that the above facts are 
true when they may so conveniently refer 
to the pages of history and find emblazoned 
thereon the success achieved by the class 
that has never had a show? Who would 
have known of the possibilities of Alexan- 
der Stephens had not a woman of kind and 
liberal heart given him an education? 
Who would have known of the wonderful 
and lasting works of Scott, Pope, and By- 
ron had not those three men of letters been 
given a chance at receiving an education 

99 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

that brought out their talents and fitted 
them for their noble and everlasting works ? 
Who would have ever benefited from the 
last works of Miltoa, who went blind in his 
declining years, had not he received an 
education before his affliction was thrust 
upon him? Who would be encouraged 
and thrilled to-day over the success and 
achievements and mission of Helen Keller, 
who has proved that the possibilities of the 
infirm and afflicted are often more wonder- 
ful than the strong, had not she been given 
a chance to receive mental training ? Who 
would know to-day of Will D. Upshaw, of 
Georgia, who has made his name a house- 
hold word in every Georgia home and who 
has done much to inspire the youths of the 
whole country, had he not been given an 
education — even after he had become thir- 
ty — after he had lain for seven years in a 
plaster of paris jacket with a broken back? 
One can ask such questions indefinitely 
about men and women in all walks of life 
who are to-day crippled in various ways 

ioo 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

and who are doing much better than their 
able brothers and sisters simply because 
they were situated so as to receive the 
needed cultivation of the mind to develop 
their God-given talents. 

The possibilities of the Cripple are un- 
limited and unfathomable. The Cripple 
has the world at his feet if given a chance 
to cope with his affliction; for he strives 
to study about that which is in his reach 
and does not waste his time rainbow- 
chasing. 

And, again, education will bring out the 
latent possibilities of the Cripple and show 
to the world their boundlessness. Educa- 
tion will also convince the masses and the 
doubters that human deformity is not pro- 
hibitive of human accomplishments. 

Therefore, since their possibilities are so 
great, it is doubly incumbent on us to make 
available to the crippled children the best 
advantages to enable them to surmount 
their difficulties and make of themselves 
useful and independent citizens. 

IOI 



PITY PUNISHES THE CRIPPLE. 

EVERY normal soul resents and 
dreads the punishment inflicted by 
pity. The heart in every bosom 
eschews the place where pity originates or 
exists. Everybody despises and detests 
pity. 

The little babe nestled in its mother's 
loving and encompassing arms, by its re- 
newed sobbing when pitied and petted be- 
cause it has hurt itself, shows conclusively 
its detestation of the pitiful action of its 
attentive and devoted parent. The pretty 
young woman who has been exposed to 
the almost irresistible temptations of na- 
ture and has surrendered to the weaknesses 
of the same is made to sink the deeper in 
sin by the cruelty practiced by that great 
portion of humanity which pities instead of 
helps. The young boy cramping amid the 
rushing, swirling current of a treacherous 
stream drowns with his soul filled with dis- 
gust at his comrades, who stand safe on the 

102 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

bank with empty pity in their hearts but 
void of courage and sense enough to offer 
assistance. The business man who fails in 
the financial world seeks seclusion from his 
friends because of the pity evident in their 
eyes. 

And so throughout all humanity pity 
lends its blight to happiness, its death to 
ambition, its backset to hope, and its cow- 
ing influence to life. 

Why is it so? The definition of the 
word will better explain : "Pity is a feeling 
of grief or pain aroused by the weakness, 
misfortune, or distress of others ; a regard 
of inferiority in happiness, hopefulness, 
and position." 

We pity the cruelly treated convict be- 
cause of his suffering and his moral in- 
feriority. We pity the beggar because of 
his dependent position and so on. We pity 
the slaves because they are beneath us in 
blood, in station, in life, and in freedom. 
We pity the crippled person because he is 
weaker, more helpless, more distressful, 

103 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

more discouraged, more unfortunate than 
are the able-bodied. 

And it shall be the object of this chapter 
to explain to the well and strong the true 
effect of pity upon the crippled child's 
mind — the pity that pains, that shames, 
that cows, that discourages, that distresses, 
that blights happiness, murders ambition, 
and starves hope. 

The Cripples of America are not looking 
for pity nor longing for it. It is sympathy 
and mercy that they desire and need. We 
have sympathy with one in grief or joy, 
in pleasure or pain. On the other hand, 
we have pity only for those in suffering 
and need. Pity may be only in the mind, 
but mercy does something for those who 
are its objects. 

But it seems that the Cripples have al- 
ways received nothing more valuable or 
helpful than pity. The human heart is 
naturally susceptible to that which evokes 
pity and sympathy. Therefore the people 
of normal strength have always, it would 

104 




■--.■\:- '•■;>■;.:-■ 



THE AUTHOR IN HIS TRICYCLE 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

seem, exercised this one propensity toward 
the physical unfortunates. And it is de- 
plorable that they have done so, inasmuch 
as it has done far more harm than good. 

However, the people should not be cen- 
sured too harshly for manifesting such 
a full measure of pity toward the weak and 
weary; for it is not due to a wrong and 
spiteful spirit, but to the utter surrender 
of themselves to their emotions without 
stopping to exercise reason. In truth, it 
is spontaneous with them ; and consequent- 
ly harm results where help is desired. 

The citation of a specific instance is ex- 
pedient : 

A bright little boy is afflicted with in- 
fantile paralysis to the degree that he is 
almost entirely helpless. He has several 
brothers older than he and a loving, de- 
voted mother. These brothers PITY lit- 
tle Jack in their noble, brotherly hearts, 
and this PITY is intensified and made the 
stronger by their great love for him. His 
mother is like all mothers — her heart is 

105 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

fraught with love, hope, and admiration 
for him, notwithstanding his deplorable 
afflictions. One particular night these big 
and strong brothers sit around the home 
fireside and discuss with their mother 
many things, just like families do around 
the hearth at night after supper has been 
finished. Little Jack is supposed to be 
sound asleep in his little bed in the far end 
of the room. He is mentioned in the con- 
versation, as is always the case. One of 
the older brothers, turning and glancing 
in the far corner of the room where the 
little bed is that furnishes several hours of 
rest each night to the little twisted and 
drawn body of Jack, satisfies himself that 
sleep has enveloped little Jack. He then 
says with pity evident in his voice : "Poor 
little Jack. He'll never amount to anything, 
for he will never be able to support him- 
self. We must all determine to be able in 
after years to support him and provide for 
his happiness, if happiness it can be called. 
It is so bad he is crippled, for he is so very, 

1 06 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

very bright." The other brothers agree 
and indorse the assertions and opinions of 
the speaker. The old mother is sad, si- 
lent, and thoughtful. She cannot believe 
as her sons do. 

But little Jack, deformed and twisted in 
an awful shape, is not asleep. He hears 
all that is said. His little fast-develop- 
ing brain is all awhirl. And oh ! where is 
the person who ever suffered more severe 
pain without a murmur, whose heart was 
ever more wrenched by words overflowing 
with pity, whose soul was ever more shad- 
owed by the outbursts of brotherly love, 
whose face was ever more flushed by the 
boiling blood of ambition heated by an 
unwarranted and unstable expression, 
whose eyes were ever more completely 
bathed with tears of helplessness, whose 
aspirations were ever more seriously 
shattered ? Who knows what awful darts 
of pain pierced and rent little Jack's 
heart? Who knows what determination 
was born in that little heart when those 

107 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

cruel words of pity reached him — determi- 
nation that would not surrender until suc- 
cess overcame his afflictions ? Who knows 
but that God, in that mysterious, lovely 
way known but to those who are in sorrow, 
filled little Jack's soul with a promise that 
killed the sting of those words which were 
spoken through love and pity and stimu- 
lated him to look upward with renewed 
hope — a hope that he could not share with 
any living soul because of the prevalence 
of that abominable opinion that a Cripple 
can never amount to anything? 

His brothers and other folks would 
have only pitied him the more and talked 
pityingly to him if he had told them that 
he would amount to something some day. 
God was the only one with whom he could 
afford to confide the sweet secrets of his 
sacred ambition. 

And God alone knew of the daily, yea, 
hourly, prayers that little Jack offered up 
to his single Confidant. Only God knew of 
the pathetic pleas made by this little fellow, 

108 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

whose heart and mind were all the while 
thrilled and filled with high aims and ex- 
alted desires to become a man in mind and 
morals, if not in body — to become a hu- 
man dynamo for the uplift and help of 
forsaken humanity. 

Four or five long years passed, and 
Jack was showered with pity by his 
brothers, who thought it was not so very 
necessary to expend money and trouble in 
educating him, as he could read, and that 
was sufficient to pass away his lonely hours 
— sufficient to mingle sunshine with shad- 
ows until his little immaculate soul should 
be separated from its little haven of help- 
lessness, the tiny body of twisted form. 

But that precious, divine promise that 
was undoubtedly made to little Jack on 
that night when his little heart was so hor- 
ribly and cruelly wrenched was soon ful- 
filled. He was placed in school, where he 
remained several years. The first year 
after he left school his name was on the 
lips of millions, and he was the topic of 

109 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

discussion in a million homes — all because 
he had done something unparalleled in the 
annals of American boyhood. One day he 
will become a living lesson, whose greatest 
object will be to teach the masses to quit 
bestowing empty pity and to begin fur- 
nishing real help, to provide as equally for 
the Cripple as for the strong. 

And so it is with all crippled children. 
They are always the objects of pity. Their 
unsightly deformities, their unusual weak- 
nesses, their terrible afflictions are the sub- 
jects of discussion at all times, either in 
their presence or in their absence. Where 
is the crippled child that has never been 
questioned thousands of times as to his 
condition, his ability to overcome his short- 
comings, and as to the causes of his trou- 
ble? Where is the child hampered by 
physical infirmities or deformities that 
has not noticed and been humiliated by the 
vulgar stare of the public and heard the 
countless conversations regarding his pit- 
iable position ? 

no 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

A murderer may escape the throes of 
the gallows and go into a strange country 
and build up his lost reputation and restore 
his happiness without the populace know- 
ing of his past. A man may break a na- 
tional bank and do innumerable other dark 
deeds of like magnitude, and in a few 
years it all will be forgotten and undis- 
cussed. A woman may sink into the very 
depths of degradation and sin and may 
outlive it by going to a strange land and 
reforming. Everybody, in fact, who has 
suffered the pains of misfortune and an- 
guish may in some way get surcease of 
sorrow part of the time — everybody but a 
Cripple. He carries his sign with him. 
His afflictions are constantly goading him 
and causing him pain because the curiosity 
and the pity of the well people will not let 
him forget for one single moment his un- 
fortunate shape. In the midst of a con- 
versation and among a crowd, when prob- 
ably he has for the time being forgotten 
that he is not like other men, some one is 

in 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

sure to interrogate and cross-examine him 
as to how he came r to be in such a position, 
mercilessly inflicting upon him the punish- 
ment resultant from ten thousand silly and 
uncalled-for questions. 

People will not ask a man why he mur- 
dered a certain fellow years ago. They 
don't want to remind him of something 
that is evidently disagreeable. People 
with half sense will not ask a poor girl 
why she went wrong years ago. They 
fear that they might hurt her feelings, 
yet they pity her. But the people in gen- 
eral are madly prone to disregard all these 
things when they come in contact with a 
crippled or deformed person. They free 
all the pent-up curiosity and pity which 
they keep from the other classes, and hurl 
the same at the head and the heart of the 
physically imperfect one. They act as if 
the Cripples have no feelings — that they 
have not the same pride, self-respect, 
and feelings that characterize the other 
classes of troubled humanity. No one 

112 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

would want to lay the blame on anything 
other than pity or ignorance and bad 
breeding. 

If the parents of this land only knew 
what an awful example they are setting 
daily before their children, if they knew 
what pain and heartaches they are sowing 
and fostering by their unthoughted actions 
along this line of social conversation, they 
would immediately change their course 
and resolve to teach by word and example 
the awfulness of such folly. They would 
instruct and drill their little children so 
thoroughly that the children would not hu- 
miliate and embarrass every Cripple that 
they might see by staring and asking hun- 
dreds of questions that need not be asked 
by any one, especially by young folks. 

Pity without sympathy, without mercy, 
and without help is empty, wasted, foolish. 
To illustrate the emptiness and foolishness 
of pity under such a condition this true 
story is mentioned : 

A deformed young lady sat silently in 
8 113 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

a waiting room of a railroad station in 
Arkansas, patiently awaiting the arrival 
of her train, which had been reported sev- 
eral hours late. Her deformity made her 
the object of all the vulgar stares imagi- 
nable. She w r as refined, educated, and far 
above the average in intelligence. She 
could but notice the large number of peo- 
ple standing about her with their eyes 
blared and their filthy mouths dropped 
wide open in wild wonderment. Some 
were so low-bred as to talk loud enough 
for her to hear what was being said about 
her deplorable afflictions and to hear the 
immeasurable amount of pity that they 
were offering her in her awful condition. 
But not one had the sense to offer her any 
material assistance in helping her on the 
train and caring for her baggage. They 
did not want to hurt her feelings. Yet 
they were eagerly willing to humiliate her 
beyond expression, almost even beyond 
endurance, by gazing at her in an idiotic 
manner. How can such narrow-minded- 

114 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ness exist in this country of enlighten- 
ment? 

But here is the difference. A man who 
had common sense and good breeding was 
also present. He had inwardly cursed the 
crowd for their manifest ignorance and 
their brutish way of watching the poor 
deformed being whose pride and self-re- 
spect were much in evidence. When the 
train whistled, this man of good breeding 
pleasantly proffered his much-needed as- 
sistance in helping the unfortunate young 
lady to board the train. The ignorant 
mob, composed of the elite of the commu- 
nity — fathers, brothers, sons, and sweet- 
hearts — stood by and still gazed at the 
helpless girl as she was lifted into the car, 
their hearts overflowing with pity. 

Now the question: Which is the young 
lady's choice when her memory reviews 
this particular occasion- — the gentleman 
who provided help or the mob who stood 
idly by and pitied ? 

And as a direct consequence of the pre- 

ii5 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

vailing custom of pitying, the crippled 
class has been made to suffer to the limit 
of endurance. The Cripples have been 
disgracefully neglected by the State and 
Federal Governments, inasmuch as no ed- 
ucational provisions have been made for 
them. They have always received the 
State's pity, while the deaf, dumb, blind, 
and orphans have received the real and 
needed assistance. The Christian organi- 
zations have also showered oceans of pity 
upon them, while these same organizations 
have spent a great part of their money in 
foreign fields in an effort to help the hea- 
then. The majestic educational institu- 
tions erected and maintained year in and 
year out by the Christian people for the 
education of the heathen and the poor 
are the noblest monuments builded since 
the dawn of Christianity. But how many 
have been built and endowed for the Crip- 
ples? 

The fraternal organizations often get a 
good spell on and raise money to provide 

116 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

food for the starving Cripples on the way- 
side, who would not have needed this char- 
itable offering if these same organizations 
had only helped to provide for their educa- 
tion in years gone by. 

Would to God that the day were here 
when this hellish and empty PITY that has 
so long been shown toward the Cripples 
to their deep sorrow would be superseded 
by mercy and sympathy of the real and 
valuable sort ! 

Then the suffering and embarrassed 
heart of many a Cripple would be relieved 
to the extent that his saddened life would 
be brightened and beautified, and his soul 
would be made happier, and his ambition 
would be made realizable, and his pleasures 
would be intensified, if the people would 
only learn to help instead of to pity — would 
learn to consider him as an equal human 
being and give him an equal chance with 
other humans and not force him in a posi- 
tion where life is made a veritable Hades ! 

"7 



THE CRIPPLES' CHRISTMAS. 

AGAIN the holiday season is at 
hand. Its significance is again the 
great theme and the subject of 
universal discussion. No one can think 
of Christmas without thinking of its mean- 
ing or trying to fathom its depths. Other 
times and seasons may come and go with- 
out calling forth a thought from the many 
as to the real significance involved, but 
with Christmas it is vastly different. It 
means something special to everybody, and 
it creates in every mind a desire to enter 
more deeply into the soul of that which it 
means to him. 

That which perpetuates the great and 
joyous season of midwinter is the young 
people. It is the eagerness with which the 
young folks look toward the coming of 
the enjoyable day and their joyful antici- 
pations that make Christmastide endure. 
Without the children to make happier and 
without the manifestation of their happi- 

118 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ness Christmas would lose its luster and 
would become but a day of the month. 
It is but the fulfillment of the Divine Plan 
for the old to enjoy and love that which 
the young enjoy and love ; thus Christmas 
has its cheer for the grown-ups. 

Yes, Christmas has come. It has 
thrown its invisible but immaculate robe 
over the entire world and has smothered 
in the heart all the dying embers of ani- 
mosity, of selfishness, and of everything 
that is bad and sordid. The heart of ev- 
ery one has been filled and thrilled with 
an irresistible desire to do good, to make 
somebody happy, to celebrate the birth of 
Him who, by his coming, made love pos- 
sible. 

On every hand one can see the brillian- 
cy of the season's spirit ; but probably the 
most realistic and attractive picture that 
one can behold in the mind's eye is afford- 
ed by the many millions of pupils and stu- 
dents of public and private schools of the 
world, especially of the United States. 

119 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

>a— —————— — — ■ 

Just for a moment close your eyes to the 
objects about you and let your imagination 
reign supreme. Look! See the great 
army of boys and girls in every section of 
these United States who make up the 
matchless student body of the thousands 
of schools. They are preparing to go home 
to spend the holidays with father and 
mother, with brother and sister, with old 
friends and schoolmates — preparing to go 
away from the scenes of their studious 
work and enjoy the indescribable pleasures 
that always come to the schoolboys and 
schoolgirls. If you will notice carefully, 
you will see all nationalities, all sorts of 
individuals, coming out of yonder school. 
See the happiness written brilliantly on 
their bright faces ! This extreme hilarity 
is intensified and made the stronger by the 
feeling with which they are obsessed, a 
feeling that they have been arming them- 
selves for the affray of life! They have 
a well-founded hope of being something 
one day. No wonder they are so happy ! 

1 20 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

Now look to your right and you will see 
another great and superb institution of 
learning — a school for the blind. Even on 
the faces of those poor and sorely afflicted 
boys and girls, who realize deeply that 
they will never look upon the physical and 
material beauties of this wonderful world, 
there are illumining smiles. On their faces 
one can see that which springs eternal in 
every youth's breast — hope. They also 
are happy because they have been learning 
in that school a way to brighten their oth- 
erwise dark and dismal path. 

This time glance to your left. There, in 
all its matchless grandeur and impressive- 
ness, stands a great and noble monument 
to the commonwealth in the superb form 
of a school for the deaf and dumb. Pour- 
ing out of its broad doors are hundreds of 
speechless, deaf children, who know noth- 
ing of the sweetness of the human voice 
nor the melody of song nor the swaying 
sound of music, who cannot articulate the 
words that make the rhythm of the lan- 

121 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

guage we love so well; yet their smiling, 
radiant faces bespeak a wonderful spirit 
of cheerfulness, happiness, and hopeful- 
ness. They are going home to loved ones 
to spend the Christmas holidays, their fer- 
tile minds overflowing with food from the 
storehouses of knowledge and their souls 
exuberant with the promise of a life worth 
while after their education is completed. 
They have been preparing to make the best 
of their lot by crowning affliction with no- 
ble thoughts and useful labors and Chris- 
tian acts. 

Increase the stimuli of your imagination 
so that you may go abroad to see the sights 
afforded by the countless millions of little 
Negroes, Chinese, Japanese, and the like, 
who are being educated at the enormous 
expense of many millions annually by the 
Christian people of America and the other 
nations. They too are intensely happy, 
anxiously awaiting the coming of their 
king of kings, Santa Claus, of whom they 
knew absolutely nothing until our mission- 

122 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

aries invaded their jungle homes to tell 
them of the Saviour. These little heathen 
are leaving their schools for the holidays, 
their minds filled with many new and 
strange things. Take a good look at all 
this infinite happiness while you may. 

If your vision has not been impaired; if 
your eyes have not been blinded by the 
dazzling brilliancy of what you have just 
seen in the way of radiant-faced young- 
sters, civilized and uncivilized, who have 
been recognized the world over by the 
government and by the Christian element 
as material worth caring for and develop- 
ing; if you are not too much elated, 
wrought up, over your imaginary trip 
around the globe and over the wonderful 
sights of youthful happiness and childish 
hopes and anticipations that you have just 
witnessed ; if your soul is in a fair condi- 
tion to sustain a severe shock, undergo a 
sudden transformation from a spell of 
happiness to a siege of sorrow, just come 
with me and turn your eyes from those 

123 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

heights of hilarity and hopefulness, turn 
them downward toward that distant dell of 
despair and despondency — that cursed val- 
ley of vagrancy, of sadness, of suffering, 
of forlorn hope. 

In the twinkle of a star that matchless 
and pompous panorama of the region of 
the blessed and assisted which has just 
been the object of our admiration is 
changed into a terrible vista of pitiable 
sights. It is the Canyon of the Cripple. 

See! Down yonder in those doomed 
and dismal depths are a half million poor, 
unhappy beings — human in body, though 
slightly deformed and distorted, human in 
soul, human in heart, human in mind, hu- 
man in ambition — but neglected, ostracized 
by the government, overlooked by the 
Christians, deserted by their own flesh and 
blood, outcasts of society, enthralled in a 
condition of physical and financial help- 
lessness, burdened by a yoke of ignorance, 
and seemingly forgotten of Heaven ! 

For them there are no great nor small 

124 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

schools and universities to leave, no school- 
mates to bid good-by, no places provided 
for them by State or individual where they 
may leave, when the holidays come, as 
others do, with souls buoyant with sus- 
taining hope and assurance of a life of 
usefulness; no nights to spend in dream- 
ing of what achievements may be theirs in 
future years ; no bright and beckoning star 
toward which to gaze while meditating 
over the stern realities of a life hampered 
by affliction — no, there is nothing for them 
other than sighs from the heart and tears 
from the eyes when Christmas comes. 

Oh the pathos of these heart-rending 
scenes, of these actual and terrible man- 
made conditions ! 

No wonder that some doubt the exist- 
ence of a loving, merciful, and just God 
when they chance to look about them and 
see the neglectful and heartless way in 
which these helpless unfortunates are 
treated by the very ones who pose as the 
centerpiece of Christian endeavor and ex- 

*25 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ample ! No wonder that the Churches fail 
in getting the unanimous support of all 
thoughtful people, many of whom cannot 
see the justice in expending millions yearly 
for the education of thousands of heathen 
at the utter neglect and ruination of a half 
million Cripples, who could be given a part 
of the time and money and not only be 
helped to learn of God and His wondrous 
promises, but also be taught to fulfill their 
missions and utilize God-given talents ! 

Foreign missions has its virtue, its place 
in the Divine Plan; but have not the 
Cripples of our own country a place in this 
life, a position in the world, other than 
that of being occupants of the neglected 
and forsaken regions ? Are they not worth 
as much to God and to humanity as the 
Christianized Savage ? How can it be con- 
sistent, in the sight of the Almighty and in 
the sight of man, to overlook these sufifer- 
ers and would-be self-supporters in order 
that heathen may learn to read, to send 
them to the poorhouses and paupers' 

126 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

graves that the heathen may go to school 
and learn of the ways of Western Civiliza- 
tion ? The Cripples' illiteracy in this coun- 
try of enlightenment is far worse than that 
of the heathen in their haunts of intel- 
lectual darkness. 

Jesus said preach to the whole world. 
He also left an example, beautiful in the 
extreme, when He knelt by the lame and 
when He opened the eyes of the blind, *He 
never intended that the one should be cared 
for and helped in countless ways at the ut- 
ter disregard of the other. Neither do the 
Cripples expect or wish to be helped while 
all other unfortunate humanity is neg- 
lected. They only desire, and Justice only 
demands, that they be given a chance. 

Because of the lack of education and in- 
dustrial training there are hundreds of 
Cripples forced to beg for alms, their only 
means of support. In our large cities are 
chair, broom, and mattress factories for 
the blind ; tailor shops, printing plants, and 
the like for the deaf. For the Cripples 

127 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

there are usually a few overcrowded char- 
ity wards. Is the difference evident ? 

Yes, Christmas has come. It has 
brought its profound feeling of peace, hap- 
piness, and good will to everybody ; it has 
filled all with sanguine spirits, animated 
the hearts and souls with laughter and 
liveliness, and convinced all of the glori- 
ousness of the day it commemorates — all 
but the Cripples ! 

But would it be unwise or, worse still, 
unappreciative to hope that the next 
Christmas may be still brighter, still more 
glorious, still more commemorative by 
there having been started in the meantime 
a move toward establishing somewhere in 
this great Nation of Christian endeavor a 
school for the education of the Cripples — 
an institution that will shine in this mod- 
ern age with as much brilliancy and splen- 
dor as did that unfixed orb in the galaxy 
that led the Wise Men of the East to the 
place where Love was born more than 
nineteen hundred years ago ? 

128 



THE CRIPPLES' INDUSTRIAL 
COLLEGE. 

IT is a superb sight. Situated on one 
of the most beautifully picturesque 
hills and overlooking all that goes to 
make a modern and growing city of the 
American type, it is without doubt the 
most wonderful, the most worthy, the 
most gloriously useful institution ever con- 
ceived by mortal man — the Cripples' In- 
dustrial College. It was erected and en- 
dowed by countless thousands of thought- 
ful, sympathetic, and unselfish American 
people for the sole and sacred benefit of 
the innumerable maimed and handicapped 
boys and girls of this country, whose pit- 
iable predecessors were disgracefully neg- 
lected and heartlessly overlooked to the 
extent that they lived a life of agonized 
suffering of mind and body and died an 
almost ignoble death, without having 
known the infinite joys of realized ambi- 
tion, without having done something cre- 

9 12 9 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ative, something helpful, something worth 
while. 

This colossal college, whose magnani- 
mous mission is fraught with all that is 
godly, towers magnificently above all other 
structures and institutions of that city as 
a gigantic and everlastingly appropriate 
monument to the spirit of brotherly love 
that Jesus so beautifully inaugurated and 
exemplified while on earth. It stands as 
a credulous proof that the world is grow- 
ing better and that the evolution of Chris- 
tianity is rapidly nearing perfection. By 
its noble purpose it augments that which 
will remove from the minds of the many 
those erroneous ideas concerning the sin- 
cerity and stability of the adherents to the 
great institution of religion. To the non- 
committal, the sinful, and the dubious 
classes it speaks more eloquently and with 
more force and does more for the glory of 
God and Christianity than half of the ex- 
hortation of the ministry. 

The very sight of its matchless student 

130 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

body of deformed, crippled, and incapaci- 
tated persons, who are goaded by affliction 
and who are continuously meeting noth- 
ing save discouragements and impedi- 
ments — yes, the inspiring sight afforded 
by these unfortunate boys and girls hard 
at work in the various departments of this 
greatest of all great industrial schools in 
an effort to master some trade or profes- 
sion that will provide a means to be inde- 
pendent in a life hampered by physical 
shortcomings — the sight of all this is 
enough to furnish sufficient stimuli to the 
soul of every discouraged and disheartened 
man of normal strength to keep his ambi- 
tion and energy up for a lifetime. It com- 
pels him to be thankful for his health, 
strength, and normal physique, to hope, to 
pray, and, last, to conquer. Every one that 
is weary, worn, and blue profits by seeing 
the one school that helps people that are 
as helpless as babes to laugh at fate and 
make misfortune smile. 

The uniqueness of this college is as no- 

131 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ticeable as its object is commendable. Al- 
though it is several stories high, it has no 
stairway, as have all other schools. Ele- 
vators are used altogether for the students, 
all of whom are crippled or deformed in 
some way. Some cannot walk, being af- 
fected with paralysis and rheumatism and 
scores of other troubles; some can walk 
with the aid of crutches and mechanical 
contrivances; others can get around, but 
have the use of only one arm; some few 
have neither arms nor feet, while still oth- 
ers have cork limbs and are apparently 
perfect from a physical point of view. In 
short, the enrollment is made up entirely 
of physically imperfect yet mentally sound 
subjects. Every known deformity of body 
may be found in this remarkably unique 
and useful educational institution. Roller 
chairs, tricycles, crutches, braces, peg legs, 
and canes are seen and heard on every 
hand. The aisles in the classrooms, in the 
auditorium, in the study halls, and every- 
where are wider than those in ordinary 

132 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

buildings, and there are no steps nor other 
inconvenient makeshifts so common in the 
school buildings throughout the land. The 
creative mind of the architect was taxed to 
its limit while drafting the plans of the 
structure which was intended to serve the 
handicapped in every way known to com- 
fort and convenience. It was not erected 
in accordance with the prevailing plans of 
the common and conventional colleges. It 
has a distinctly singular mission, and its 
buildings and furnishings must necessa- 
rily be in keeping with the object. Hence 
one sees in this grand educational edifice 
all that the progress of the present can 
furnish. 

A glimpse into the crowded study halls 
and classrooms will impress one indelibly. 
There may be seen hundreds of healthy, 
strong-minded young folks, with twisted 
bodies and curled limbs, who are being 
taught by master minds everything that 
will be of worth to them in life. They are 
learning trades and professions that will 

133 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

be possible and practicable to follow in 
their physical condition. No one is al- 
lowed to study anything and specialize in 
it when it would be impossible to become 
an adept in the same in after life on ac- 
count of one's affliction, as it is believed 
and rightly taught that God gives every 
one a talent, the training and practice of 
which are within the bounds of one's capa- 
bility. Thus it would be foolish to in- 
struct a one-armed person in surgery or to 
try to train a one-legged man for military 
pursuits. Therefore each person that is 
brought into the college is placed in the 
hands of a competent board or faculty. 
This body of experts will examine the in- 
dividual and ascertain his likes and dis- 
likes, his inclinations and detestations. 
They then discover what he is fitted for 
and accordingly assign him to his proper 
place in the school. 

The girls are taught those branches that 
are suited to the individual taste and capa- 
bilities. Some take art, some learn stenog- 

134 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

raphy and bookkeeping, drawing, fancy 
sewing, music, and voice, while others take 
a thorough literary course and so on. The 
boys are taught a score or more of profes- 
sions and trades. Some who are brilliant- 
ly adapted to journalistic work are trained 
in that line, others take bookkeeping and 
shorthand, while still others make great 
strides in photography, mathematics, lit- 
erature, pedagogy, the sciences, political 
economy, and law. A few master theol- 
ogy and elocution. Every one is taught, 
trained, and drilled in some useful voca- 
tion which will keep him from the ranks 
of the beggar and place him in a state of 
independence and usefulness. 

And the result : 

This college is annually turning out 
Stephenses, Byrons, Popes, Scotts, and the 
like, who will leave their names and im- 
perishable works as undying legacies of 
the Twentieth Century when the cry of the 
Cripple was heard and answered as God 
centuries ago intended it to be answered. 

135 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

This college is daily proving the conten- 
tion of the Cripple that he is not worth- 
less, that all he needs is a chance like that 
given the normal fellow by the laws of the 
land and by the Christian and fraternal 
organizations. This college is convincing 
people everywhere that it is a national 
crime to overlook and pass the Cripples 
by in the maddened race for gold and in 
the struggle to educate, humanize, and 
Christianize the negroes of the African 
jungles. This college is striking ponder- 
ous blows at selfishness, bigotry, and nar- 
row-mindedness, all of which have been 
the worst enemies, except neglect, that 
ever harmed the crippled class and held it 
in a bondage of damnable degradation. 
This college is showing the world that a 
man deprived of the use of his members 
is no more helpless than the person who is 
denied the power of speech, the sense of 
hearing, and the ability to see; the class 
that has been nurtured, taught, and cared 
for by the State and the Church and indi- 

136 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

viduals for years upon years; the class 
that has produced such personages as Hel- 
en Keller, who has lent to the treasury of 
time some of its brightest and most price- 
less jewels. This college is speaking in 
fiery words of eloquence for the cause of 
Christianity, exemplifying the fact that 
the tree is judged by the fruit it bears. 
This college for the training of the helpless 
is one of the greatest and most valuable 
friends of society, inasmuch as it is helping 
to decrease the appalling number of the 
objects of charity that have in the past 
borne themselves down upon society in a 
pitiable condition of helplessness. In a 
nutshell, this college is the fulfillment of 
the Divine Injunction which embodies 
brotherly love, unselfishness, sympathy for 
the suffering, help for the weak, relief for 
the needy, and all that contributes to the 

cause of Christianity. 

• ••••••• 

Let's glance at the student body again. 
Directly over the happily hopeful heart of 

137 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

each of these struggling students is worn 
a beautiful blue badge on which is em- 
bossed in white three capital letters, "C. 
I. C." To the visitor but one thought 
enters his mind as to the significance of 
this letter trio — he readily thinks it stands 
for the name of the institution, "Cripples' 
Industrial College." To the outside world 
it does stand for that. 

But to the beneficiaries it means vastly 
more; for in those three letters that com- 
pose the mysterious monogram worn by 
these students reposes a question that has 
confronted and perplexed for ages upon 
ages every crippled person starting out in 
life — a question that has been asked mil- 
lions of times with a sob, a heart throb, 
asked with the same expectancy and hope- 
fulness yet uncertainty that characterize 
the pleading of a condemned criminal for 
clemency. Not until the organization and 
completion of this college for the physically 
condemned was that long-asked question 
satisfactorily and correctly answered. 

138 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

Now the crippled boy or girl, when he 
or she gets old enough to think of the en- 
suing struggle for independence, may ask 
the old, old question: "Can I Conquer?" 
This great endowed college, awaiting him 
or her, makes possible the transposition 
of the vitally important question, which 
then becomes a dauntless declaration in the 
form of a reply : "Conquer I Can !" 

And, thank God, that answer is the em- 
bodiment of truth itself. They can con- 
quer — these condemned Cripples — if they 
are given a chance. God inculcates in the 
mind of every man and instills in his soul 
a desire to conquer. Without the propen- 
sity of conquest with which he is endowed 
by his Creator, man would never have 
reached this high stage of civilization. He 
would never have got control of the beasts 
of the forests, nor the waters of the 
streams, nor the lightning of the air, and 
all of creation. He would have been a 
groveling and growling animal of the 

139 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

beastly type, the object of all the terrific 
forces in the category. 

Therefore God deprives no one of the 
powers of mastery and triumph. To 
those who cannot overcome by muscular 
strength and power He gives the mental 
acumen and alertness and also spiritual 
strength. Alexander Stephens was an in- 
valid and unable to go to the front in the 
War between the States ; yet he remained 
at home and with a statesman's skill helped 
guide the course of the Confederacy and 
her armies. His physique was as a frail 
dwarf; his mentality was giantlike. He 
conquered and died a hero — an historical 
character. His cultivated brains and not 
his brawn did it. 

However, in the conclusion of this chap- 
ter I must beg pardon from my reader for 
having written the above as if there really 
were such a college or school in existence. 
It was done with the hope that it might 
cause the masses to think, to see the prac- 

140 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ticableness and the imperative need of such 
a wonderful institution, and to come to an 
understanding as to what I mean when I 
declare that the Cripples should be edu- 
cated as all other persons or classes. 

In truth, the college described here is 
but a school of my dreams. The city in 
which it is located is but the fruit of my 
fancy. The students, however, are real — 
you may see them daily in your locality, 
each one's bleeding and bursting heart 
echoing that outburst of the Meek and 
Lowly One on the Cross: "My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 

But something tells me and hundreds of 
others who believe in the wondrous prom- 
ises that the day is not distant when we 
may hear His precious voice and see His 
face in all of its ineffable glory in the per- 
sons of these weary, worn, and worthy 
crippled children, whom I, in my fancy, 
have placed as students in the college of 
my contemplation, in the city of my imag- 
ination. 

141 



TO A CRIPPLES MOTHER. 

ANONYMITY has encouraged the 
revelation of many a soul's sacred 
secret. It has fearlessly dictated 
many wonderful letters, which have bared 
the heart and disrobed the soul and shown 
the world their throbbing and pathetic 
contemplation and condition. Anonymity 
has furnished the ghastly ghost in the clos- 
et of life sufficient strength to stalk in the 
open. 

But rare indeed is it that identity ever 
accompanies written confessions that 
crime has been entertained, that the heart 
has been steeped in awful thoughts, that 
through love it has frantically planned and 
pondered over fiendish deeds. 

Yet just such a confession was not long 
since made to the author of this book by a 
lovingly devoted little mother of West 
Tennessee, made in a letter over her signa- 
ture. The handwriting, the composition, 
the spelling — all show that the perplexed 
mother is educated, refined. 

142 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

The letter that tells so much, that de- 
picts the real condition of the sorrowful 
parents of crippled children, follows in 
full, but the writer's name is withheld 
through respect for the confidence reposed : 

" , Tenn., February 16, 1914. 

My dear Sir: Your excellent and truth-laden ar- 
ticles that have been appearing in the large dailies of 
the South appeal so to me that I want to ask you a 
question: Could one insignificant mother of a Cripple, 
a little girl, whom I fear in time will have to make her 
own living, do anything that will help to remedy the 
heartless and thoughtless attitude of the people toward 
the Cripples? My heart and brain were already full 
when I read your articles, which make me almost wild, 
frantic, to do something. Why, I have time and again 
in recent days entertained — yes, encouraged — the 
thoughts of sending my child's soul on to God — He 
loves the Cripples — but thoughts of my own soul pre- 
vented! I have thought of all you have said and a 
thousand things more concerning my Cripple, my pre- 
cious baby — she was not born that way, though — it was 
infantile paralysis. I trust you will spare enough time 
to answer my questions. Time is flying, and I would 
gladly go through purgatory fire to make my child safe 
after I am gone — that is, not helpless. You have writ- 
ten of conditions just as they are; now write and keep 
writing on a remedy. 

Yours most sincerely, . 

A magazine article lies unfinished upon 

143 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

my desk, the work of days, a thing of pol- 
ished, hard-won phrases. It is overflow- 
ing with all that a young writer can com- 
mand ; it tells of the achievements of some 
of our greatest men and women who have 
fought under hundreds of hardships and 
countless handicaps. It shall be finished 
on another day. 

For I have thought of the thousands of 
persons who will read this book — persons 
who need to know the sacred secret re- 
vealed in the little, faintly perfumed mis- 
sive from the bleeding-hearted mother. 
And I have thought of the light that this 
anguished cry will reflect upon the appall- 
ing conditions that disgrace our fair 
America — the conditions that enslave al- 
most one-half million of Cripples, who 
stand daily upon the threshold of the poor- 
house and who nightly kneel before a God 
whom they can but hope will soon see that 
their suffering is relieved here on earth as 
it most certainly will be in Heaven. When 

144 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

I thought of all this, I pushed aside the 
unfinished story of success. 

And if this message that I am writing 
instead reaches you, Little Mother, and 
cheers your aching, troubled heart of 
hearts, I shall be content. Fight on ! The 
world is still a house of terrible dreams, 
but Justice always hears. The Star shines 
ever over Bethlehem to guide the Wise 
Men to the Manger. 

If the day has come when such as you, 
Little Mother, so pure, so loving, so true 
to your baby's welfare and happiness — if 
the day has come when such as you are 
driven to distraction and made frantic over 
the thoughts of the future of your afflicted 
child to the degree that you entertain for 
one moment the thought of hurling its 
little soul back to the God who gave it; 
yes, if the thoughtlessness of the unselfish 
people has let such a day come and will 
continue to allow such a day to linger — 
then all that seemed to make life worth 
the while was a mean lie ! 
10 145 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

Cheer up, Little Mother ! Dawn pulses 
in the womb of night ! I bear this conso- 
lation to you. Your letter to me, in which 
you spilled the blood of your bleeding 
heart, yes, your letter in which you con- 
fessed your frantic designs of murder, 
caused by your mad and motherly love for 
your helpless child, whose future now looks 
so dark and gloomy, will certainly inspire 
Christian men and women to go where 
poverty has choked the home, where afflic- 
tion has cursed the fireside, and where neg- 
lect has hovered its terrible, darkening 
shadows upon the hearth! It will cause 
the Angel of Mercy to hover about in- 
stead. 

There was a day on which God gave His 
Son unto the poor and the helpless; and 
if it be that your babe and those of thou- 
sands of other devoted little mothers can- 
not find mercy when their feeble and faint 
cries are heard, then God's own sacrifice 
was in vain. 

Yes, time is flying, Little Mother, and 

146 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

it will be but a short while until the un- 
justness that now exists will be tempered 
by mercy and will be made just. 

And when that day comes, your little 
babe will have as bright a future as either 
the deaf or the blind. Her little arms will 
not have to be entwined about your neck 
on account of her helplessness, and her lit- 
tle brain will not be weak and untrained; 
for both the State and the people will see 
that she is given the same thorough men- 
tal training that is furnished all other un- 
fortunates. 

Yes, Little Mother, you can do much to 
help bring about this needed change of 
unjust educational opportunities, more 
than can the mother that has not a little 
crippled girl to inspire her to take up the 
noble and godly work. 

So take my advice and look up, pray 
and be ready when the call comes, which 
will not be long. 

God will care for your babe in the mean- 
time. 

147 



WHAT THE CHURCH AND THE 

STATE MEAN TO THE 

CRIPPLE. 

THE State Teachers' Association 
had just closed a big and enthusi- 
astic meeting in Little Rock, Ark. 
The papers had column after column of 
news matter and speeches and addresses 
dealing with the great progress of the 
Public School System of the State. A cer- 
tain class of readers read each and every 
line with feverish eagerness and interest 
with the hope of finding mention of a 
phase of the educational work heretofore 
grossly neglected. But such hope and 
search resulted in dismal failure. 

One of these readers is now a grown 
young man, with the boiling blood of pa- 
triotic youth in his veins and with a deep- 
rooted love in his whole being for his 
country. He writes the author the fol- 
lowing letter, which presents a ponderous 
argument for the immediate solution of a 

148 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

problem that confronts in unjust but co- 
lossal form every young boy and girl in a 
condition similar to that of this young 
man: 

My dear Friend: You are eminently able to present 
to the public the claims and pleas of the uneducated 
Cripples of America and the demands of Justice. I 
have been reading with profound interest your articles 
dealing with a condition that should make both State 
and Church blush. Too, I have been reading of the 
great growth of our public schools and educational in- 
stitutions of the State. I have, therefore, determined 
that I would write you a letter and give to you the as- 
surance that what you have written regarding us Crip- 
ples is true in every detail. 

When a small boy upon my father's knee I was told 
I lived in a republic which came about as a result of a 
long and bloody conflict for freedom and for self-gov- 
ernment. In answer to my childish questioning as to 
what was meant when one mentioned government, he 
told me in simple words, in order that my uncultivated 
mind might grasp and understand fully, that a govern- 
ment was maintained for the perpetuation of peace, 
prosperity, and protection among a people within a 
certain boundary and that its expenses were borne by 
a revenue known as taxes and paid by the people. He 
told me that our government was supposed to exercise 
its power in upholding the Constitution, which provides 
that no person shall become the object of discrimination 
and that all shall have an equal show, as far as the 
government is concerned. He told me why this country 

149 



THE UNHEARD CRY. 

was settled and why our forefathers fought for seven 
years for relief from the overbearing actions of a coun- 
try that tolerated classes and castes. He went on to tell 
me that a great portion of the money collected as taxes 
by my State was used for the support of the public 
educational system, which now embraces the grammar 
school, the high school, the State university, the State 
normal, the four agricultural schools, the institutions 
for the blind, the deaf, and the dumb. 

But as I grew older I came to the realization that 
my father was somewhat mistaken in his definition of a 
national and a State government. He was gone from 
earth, and I had to study out the error for myself. I had 
no one to ask, for the preachers and the teachers and the 
politicians all said practically what my father had said. 

When I first began to get my eyes open to some 
things of importance, I was living in the country and 
was but a small lad — and a Cripple at that. It was then 
that I began to wonder why it was that all the other 
little boys got a chance to go to school and that I did 
not. I did not know then that there were thousands of 
other little fellows in my same shape, all because they 
were Cripples, and that they were thinking in their 
solemn moments the same thoughts that were flitting 
through my mind. I never for one moment blamed 
my State or my Church, for my father before his death 
had told me that the public school was for everybody — 
everybody that could get to it — and I knew that I could 
not get to the schoolhouse, for I lived two miles away 
and the school term of three months always came in 
dead winter. Moreover, I remembered that my father 
had told me that the "government of my State did not 
discriminate on account of condition, color, or race, etc." 

150 



THE UNHEARD CRY. 

Neither did I blame my Church, for I had been taught 
that the Church was to teach and practice the precepts 
of a Christ who had said: "Even as you do unto the 
least of these, you do it unto me." Too, I had heard the 
preachers that came to my home talk heart-rendingly 
about the poor, suffering heathen in Africa and Japan 
and so on, for whom they, in behalf of the Church, 
were raising money to help carry schools ten thousand 
miles for these little heathen. 

I then could not understand why it was that the 
Church strove to raise millions of dollars to carry 
schools to the heathen on the other side of the world 
when neither it nor the State saw fit to make arrange- 
ments to carry me and a half million other Cripples 
a few blocks or a few miles to a public school. Al- 
though years have passed since that time, I have not 
yet come to know why the preachers and the politicians 
have united in such ways as have tended to disregard 
the children of their own flesh and blood in order to 
provide for others of distant kinship. 

Finally luck came my way. My mother moved to 
town, near the schoolhouse, and I managed to enter 
school the first time. I made two years in one every 
year I was in school. I finished the course and got 
ready for the university. And — my school career came 
to a sudden and sad end. 

Then I, at the age of seventeen, awoke to the fact 
that what my State and my Church were doing was all 
a farce, insomuch as that expression "no discrimina- 
tion" was concerned. It died upon my lips just as it 
has died upon the lips of ten thousand times ten thou- 
sand Cripples in generations gone by. 

Why? you will ask. I shall tell you. After laboring 

151 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

under all the disadvantages and embarrassments and 
humiliation incident to the struggles of a Cripple in 
the public school to get the rudiments of an education, 
I came to learn that my soul's desire for a higher edu- 
cation was beyond hope of realization. Why? Simply 
because my State had "discriminated/' because the 
legislators who had been successful in getting estab- 
lished a great system of education had ignored the class 
of humanity of which I was a representative — the 
Cripple — and had made no provision for me and my 
kind. 

True, there was a University, but no way to attend 
nor conveniences for me had I got there. Yes, there 
was the State Normal, but the same obstacles were there 
also. There were the four agricultural schools; still 
I as a Cripple had no show there. I could not have got 
into any one of these great institutions without an at- 
tendant, whom I would have had to pay a salary large 
enough to satisfy him and pay his expenses, besides 
my own expenses. How could a boy of no means bear 
the expenses of two in order to get an education for 
one? The cost would have been at least, including the 
salary of the attendant and his expenses, three times 
as much as that of a normal boy, besides enduring the 
unspeakable embarrassment and humiliation of being 
"one Cripple among ten thousand strong ones." Last, 
there were the State institutions for the deaf, dumb, 
and blind. Before I could have gained entrance there 
I would have been compelled to burst my ear drums or 
to burn out my eyes or to cut out my tongue ; for those 
institutions are for those who cannot see, talk, or hear 
and not for those who cannot walk. 

Notwithstanding all my unrealized dreams for a 

152 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

higher education and my hope which has grown for- 
lorn, my heart beats with rapture and my soul is thrilled 
with ecstasy when I read of the progress being made 
by those identified with school work in my State, even 
though I know that the same State has ignored me and 
all others like me. I can hardly sit still when I hear of 
the achievements of the graduates of the University and 
of the Normal, the same schools from which I longed 
to be graduated but was prevented on account of a 
neglect that has wrecked greater ambitions than I ever 
possessed. 

But since you have begun your work in behalf of 
those who now occupy the same position that I occupied, 
and since the press is with you and the public senti- 
ment, I feel that the little Cripples of to-day will have 
a better show than was given me and my generation 
and that they will never have as just a cause as I have 
to say that the State and the Church have been farces 
to a neglected Cripple. 

Sincerely, . 

The foregoing letter portrays a feeling 
that has pervaded the heart and the soul 
of many a Cripple, not only in Arkansas, 
but in all other States as well, and depicts 
without exaggeration a condition of af- 
fairs that flaunts nothing less than shame 
and disgrace into the faces of those who 
have allowed such a condition a place in 
the world. The letter evidences much 

153 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

that is tentative to the thoughts of infidel- 
ity and shows that disgust as well as dis- 
couragement is experienced by those who 
have been made to suffer by the existence 
and toleration of the greatest injustice that 
confronts educational progress and power. 
It goes to prove that the utter neglect to- 
ward one of the most intelligent classes of 
human unfortunates is the cumulative ef- 
fect of what might be termed thoughtless- 
ness on the part of those who have chosen 
as their profession the teaching of the 
youths of the country and the elimination 
of ignorance. For it would seem that the 
great body of teachers in the Nation would 
have been glad of an opportunity to remedy 
the matter if they had only exercised a 
little foresight and a little thought. But 
possibly it is due to a failure of the few in- 
terested ones to place the real conditions 
before the august body of pedagogues. 

After reading this letter from this young 
Arkansan who has been denied the privi- 
leges accorded others of his State, one 

154 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

would have to be brazen indeed to look 
him in the eye and tell him that the Con- 
stitution of his State, which provides for 
popular education, has been carried out to 
the dot and that the legislators have 
awaiting them crowns of purest ray serene. 
It would be hard to convince him that the 
Church is following in full the teachings 
of the Lowly One, who, while on earth, 
never hesitated nor allowed an opportu- 
nity to pass to help a Cripple along. This 
youth knows, as every one else knows, that 
Arkansas in particular and the other 
States in general have not provided for the 
care of the Cripples in other ways than by 
erecting the poorhouse in which the half- 
starved and abused unfortunates are con- 
fined until death releases them from the 
hellish chains that bind them while alive. 

One does not have to think longer than 
a moment in order to conclude that the 
Cripples of Arkansas and of the other 
States are nothing more than aliens in the 
land in which they were born. Therefore 

155 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

through what channels could the Nation 
expect these home-born aliens to come into 
possession of true patriotism if the foun- 
dation of the whole is education and that 
be denied them ? And who will say that a 
Cripple is not patriotic ? Such a condition 
of contradictions never before furnished 
such an affair so akin to chaos. 

We are taught that the foundation of 
the whole Nation is given its stability 
through the public schools. We are taught 
that we would have never reached this era 
of progress but for this system of free 
education; and for these reasons we have 
the grammar and high schools, the indus- 
trial schools, the university and normals, 
the institutions for the deaf, the dumb, and 
the blind, all of which are kept up by the 
taxes paid by the people. We are further 
taught that education is essential to the 
strong, the blind, the deaf, the dumb. Si- 
lence prevails world-wide when the educa- 
tion of a physically handicapped one is 
mentioned. He has nothing but his brain 

156 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

to rely on — and his brain remains un- 
trained. 

What does the Church mean to the crip- 
pled person? In many instances it be- 
comes as naught in the view of the neglect- 
ed one. The Church in America says to 
the Cripple : "Be converted ; get salvation ; 
pray, and God will care for you." The 
Church, on the other hand, says to the 
heathen : "Become civilized, for the Church 
will pay your expenses and send teachers 
and schools and millions of dollars to your 
very door, although it be ten thousand 
miles from the home of the Church." 

Which is the better off, the Cripple or 
the heathen ? The Cripple is left alone, to 
grow up in ignorance and filth, if he be 
poor; left alone to make the best of it in 
his condition of helplessness and crawl 
through life, often by the door of the 
Church, and is not invited or helped in. 
He is preached to and patted on the shoul- 
der while the work of salvation goes on. 
The heathen is taken from a home of 

157 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

bamboo bushes and placed in modern 
houses, erected at great expense, is taken 
from the depths of barbarism and placed 
on the heights of civilization and learning ; 
he is cared for and clothed and treated 
when sick — all because he says he is con- 
verted and believes in a Christ that taught 
and practiced the helping of Cripples to 
help themselves. 

The writer does not desire nor intend 
that the reader get an idea that he does 
not favor Foreign Missions ; but he hopes 
that the reader will readily see that the 
heathen are getting more than their share, 
and that Hell is being filled yearly from 
the ranks of the neglected Cripples on our 
streets, who are forced to beg and steal 
and pander because of the neglect that the 
Church is, in many cases, guilty of. 

The Government and the State do prac- 
tically the same as the Church. The Gov- 
ernment will sacrifice thousands of men in 
battling for the help and protection of the 
Cubans and Filipinos and so on, while it 

15B 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

has never provided for the care and edu- 
cation and utility of the Cripples here at 
home. The various States, as heretofore 
mentioned, have shown no more regard 
than either the Church or the Government. 
They have not put forth any effort toward 
helping the Cripples to help themselves, 
which can be done in only one way, and 
that is by educating them in industrial 
ways suited to their capabilities. And the 
worst part of it is, the South has come up 
foremost in this awful and unjust neglect. 
Yes, there are approximately one-half 
million Cripples in America wondering 
this very moment why the Church and the 
State have both disregarded them in order 
to help along everything and everybody 
else — wondering why the educational fa- 
cilities, upon which this Nation's growth 
and power rests, have not been made so as 
to give them a chance of receiving an edu- 
cation which would help to make them in- 
dependent and patriotic citizens of inesti- 
mable value. 

159 



THE CONFESSION OF A CRIPPLE. 

THERE are a few immortal letters. 
Horace and Virgil wrote upon 
waxen tablets that will outlive the 
pillars of the Pantheon. The quill of Tal- 
leyrand will keep ajar the doors of royal 
France for generations to be. So long as 
ink shall mark pathways to yesterday the 
gracious sentences of Chesterfield will 
guide us into London's brilliant pump- 
rooms and lead us back to Mayfair in its 
stately prime. 

In such illustrious company the humble 
lines that lie upon my desk have little 
place. And yet they seem to me, in their 
piteousness, the saddest yet truest words 
that grief and heartbreak ever wrote. 

It was on May Day that the letter came ; 
and as I nervously opened it and eagerly 
read its childlike confession, I pictured in 
my fancy the condition under which it was 
written. I could see the frail form of the 
pale, forlorn girl leaning languidly against 

1 60 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

a table or possibly sitting on a decayed 
doorstep, penciling laboriously the care- 
fully chosen words that conveyed to me a 
message from the depths of a saddened 
soul and a hungry heart. I fancied I could 
see the rough tablet upon her lap, which 
not only served as the material on which 
to write, but also as the object to catch a 
tear every now and then, whose marks 
were still visible on the rough paper. I 
fancied I could hear her sigh as she fin- 
ished each sentence that told of her throb- 
bing, love-seeking, and ambitious heart, 
and I could see her as she raised her head 
to look off in the distance over the mead- 
ows and down the lane. 

That morning I had watched a large 
concourse of school children go trooping 
through the streets of the little city. The 
very atmosphere was made purer by their 
merriment. The sky was hung with azure 
tapestries, and the faint scent of the wild 
flowers on the mountain side, blended with 
the sweeter strain of spring-decked or- 
ii 161 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

chards, was borne into my room by the 
gentle Ozark breezes. The world was 
never in a gentler mood. Spring with all 
its glory surged in the air — Spring, all- 
promising Spring. 

I read her letter again, and all the joy 
that had pervaded and surrounded me, all 
the vital, happy forces died, and to my last 
hour every piteous word of it will be 
burned into my memory. 

And this is what she wrote : 

My dear Sir and Friend: Shall the secret of one's 
soul be told? Shall one's overflowing, aching heart be 
bared so as to reveal to the world its every throb? 
Shall the most sacred thoughts of a simple mind be 
spoken so as to be heard by the ears of the vulgar 
public? Shall the balmy dreams of girlish hope be in- 
terpreted by inscribed words? Shall the terrible death 
of one's ambition be mentioned? 

Over these keen, vital questions I have pondered 
and prayed and wept — these cutting questions that I 
have asked myself. I have pondered because of their 
importance and sacredness; I have prayed for guidance 
in answering them, and I have wept because of no 
other way to obtain relief. 

Pent up in my heart, which I dare say has almost 
grown cold and skeptical in the frigid atmosphere in 
which I have been existing, T have had my secrets. I 

l62 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

have kept them stored away, secreted from the world, 
even from my mother, and sometimes I feel as if they 
are unknown to my God. 

Walled up with all the self-control and will power 
that I possess, I managed to keep them all to myself — 
until you came into my life through the medium of 
what I term your sermons on the Cripples, which have 
been appearing at short intervals. I know you are no 
preacher, and I know just as well that your work is 
not under the auspices of any Church. But I must say 
that God has never helped man to espouse a more 
noble cause than that which you are identifying your- 
self with. 

So this day I have determined that I would unfold 
to you some things that are more than sacred, for you 
have touched a responsive chord in my heart with that 
noble plea you are making for such as I — a plea that 
furnishes a ray of hope to the young Cripples of the 
land and a spark of joy to the old ones. 

Without precedent, you have been graphically and 
truthfully painting the real life of a crippled child. 
You have told of its ambitions, of its hopes, of its air 
castles, of its fond dreams, of its struggles, of its neg- 
lect, of its helplessness, and, last, of its defeat and 
death and burial in the potter's field. You have told of 
the cause of all this wrecked ambition and hope, of this 
shattered happiness and these unrealized dreams, of 
this life of misfortune and affliction. 

But you have failed to tell of the heartbeats of a 
crippled girl who has survived all these adverse forces 
and obstacles. You have failed to mention what a crip- 
pled or deformed girl's life means. You have not men- 
tioned her struggles of self-sacrifice and her devotion 

163 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

to the sex of which she is representative, her innate de- 
sires and propensities. No doubt your failure in regard 
to this phase of the subject is due to the fact that you 
do not know of these things that impel crippled girls 
to seek seclusion from society and to pray for relief 
here and, if not possible, for relief hereafter. Because 
of this, my opinion of your lack of knowledge of the 
crippled girl's lot, I am now decidedly determined to 
open the secret cells of my inmost heart and soul, that 
you may peer in and get a view of the terrors that fill 
the heart with agonies unmentionable and sighs in- 
audible. 

My confession is not one of joy nor one that dis- 
seminates good cheer and sunshine; but, instead, it is 
the dark side that "I seek to hide from the dear souls 
I walk beside." I have the utmost confidence in you 
and only ask that you use for the help of the cause the 
secret sorrows of my life told to you alone. 

When I was a child I did not realize the magnitude 
of my physical condition. I was happy and often thought 
it nice to be a Cripple because all did as I wanted them 
to do. Like every other childish heart, mine knew no 
sorrows, and the sunshine rarely ceased to shine about 
me. 

But as I grew older every day brought to me new 
sorrows and strange heart pulsations that only a crip- 
pled girl can know. I could see my strong girl friends 
rush on in their glee, accompanied by the sturdy boys, 
whose presence seemed to increase the merriment on 
all occasions. I would follow them to the ice and watch 
them skate. T would sit near the pond and watch them 
enjoying youthhood, secretly wishing and longing that 
I might do likewise. I would grow so cold sitting still 

164 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

that I would be compelled to go home and spend the 
rest of the day brooding over the thoughts that such 
pleasures could never be mine and realizing that every 
day brought me nearer the time when I must go alone, 
when I must be an outcast from the circles of my 
friends, who would soon be grown and in society. Thus 
I would spend the long wintry months. 

Spring always brings renewed hopes. It used to 
bring such to me. But the inevitable awakening of my 
fate was not affected by Spring. I would attend the 
picnics with my friends; but, being unable to keep 
pace with them, I would soon find myself alone under 
a shade tree, watching the others enjoying themselves. 
Did I ever envy them? Ah no! I only longed to be 
like them. Sometimes they would say : "You don't have 
a bit of fun. Why don't you play?" Or, with unin- 
tentional cruelty, remark: "She can't play this; there's 
no use to choose her ; she can watch the dinner baskets." 
Pleasure in that, to be sure. 

Finally I began to see that there was no room for 
me — no use of my trying to associate with the able, so 
I stayed away and tried to occupy myself with other 
things; tried to blot out the secret longing for the so- 
ciety that every young heart craves; tried to quiet my 
aching heart and to dry the bitter tears that would often 
flood my eyes and saturate my pillow as I lay awake 
night after night. The consoling thought that God was 
watching over me and that he knew all my sorrows and 
that he cared for me would cause me to fall asleep, 
only to dream of seeing the happy young folks of my 
acquaintance enjoying the sports and pleasures of youth. 

After reaching womanhood I became reconciled to 
my fate and determined that I would devote my life 

165 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

to creative work, for I believed that I had been en- 
dowed with a talent within reach of my physical capa- 
bilities, a talent for art. I said to myself that I would 
devote my life in the studio. I was not yet twenty, 
yet I was grown in the opinion of all, for I was a Crip- 
ple, and Cripples age fast. My wisdom was what might 
be expected of a frail girl reared under all sorts of 
discouragements and backsets; I never thought of how 
I should learn art. There was a teacher of art in 
my little home village. She took interest in me to the 
extent that I soon reached the stage where she could 
teach me no longer, for she was but a novice. 

It was then that the blackest cloud that ever obscured 
the horizon of a young girl's hope rose before me. It 
was then that the most excruciating pain that ever 
pierced the heart of a girl, crippled or not crippled, 
spent itself through my being and left in its wake a 
torturous sensation of defeat. I discovered no possible 
way to attend school any longer — I was a Cripple and a 
girl of no means. My air castles became invisible ruins, 
and my dreams became nightmares, and my hopes be- 
came as the Egyptian darkness. Heretofore my life 
had been miserable. I had been denied every pleasure 
that was accorded the strong. But I had been the pos- 
sessor of happy hope. Now it was gone. I cannot de- 
scribe in my words how I felt the night I lay awake 
until the stars ceased to shine— the night that the reali- 
zation in all its fullness came to me that I would have 
to go through life suffering untold grief, fighting my 
secret battles and drifting on the tide of public neglect 
and aversion — all because I was a helpless, hopeless, 
moneyless girl, who had never been thought of by 
those who tell of the beauties and blessings of educa- 

1 66 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

tion, those who educate the lowest specimens of hu- 
manity in order to be missionary. Life frowned at me, 
and fate grinned in my face. 

There comes a time in the life of every girl, whether 
she will admit it or not, when she wants a home of her 
own. Girls naturally shrink from treading the paths 
of a cold and unfeeling world alone. They long for 
the protection of the stronger sex. Girls with physi- 
cal AFFLICTION ARE NOT LESS SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE 
CHARMS OF THEIR BOY FRIENDS THAN ARE THOSE OF PER- 
FECT limb. But they are looked upon as not fit for 
marriage, and rightly so. They often have chances to 
marry, but they have a choice in the matter as well. 
They shrink from selling themselves upon the altar of 
passion or from marrying worthless characters, just as 
all true and pure girls do. I have often overheard the 
remark about myself, "She could marry if she were not 
crippled." 

Now, I want to assure yoti that marriage never en- 
ters my mind, and why should it? I never even allow 
my imagination to place me in a humble little log house 
which might be called home; I have murdered all those 
dear feelings of woman ; I have suffered myself to 
stab every instinct of motherhood and wifehood; I am 
doomed to be a lonely wanderer on the desert of despair 
and desolation. 

I am reconciled to all that I have heretofore men- 
tioned in my confession; but I can never be reconciled 
to the causes that have prevented my becoming a trained 
artist and my painting on canvas the man of my ideals 
and the babe of my dreams. Why is it that I have 
been denied the utility of these creative propensities? 
Your work on the subject of the uneducated Cripples 

167 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

is the answer. God gave me the talent; but heartless, 
thoughtless man and woman have robbed me of it. 
God gave me the desire to get an education; but the 
State and the Church, at whose shrine I worship, have 
refused me the mental training. God gave me a love 
for independence; but conditions as they exist to-day 
have enslaved me. God gave me the pure heart of a 
girl; but it has become cold, skeptical, and almost un- 
forgiving. God gave me a soul ; but, alas ! what are the 
chances for it? 

It is the bright side of my life that the world sees. 
All my griefs are locked up in the secret chambers of 
my heart. (You are the only one that ever learned 
the combination of this lock.) I shall go through life 
seemingly unconscious of my sore afflictions and my 
disappointments, but there is an aching void that can 
never be filled on this earth. It might have been filled 
once upon a time. God would not have it so, and for 
this belief I shall put my trust in Him and try to live 
in the love of His Son who died to redeem such as I 
am. 

Yours in sunshine and shade, . 

Little Sister, your confession needs no 
reply ; but I will give it to the world, that 
there may be had a faint idea of just what 
you have suffered and all others like you. 
Too, I will venture the presumption that 
what you have written to me is but a small 
portion of what you have pent up in your 
heart. Do not tell me that you have told 

1 68 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

me all the secrets that you have, for you 
have not. You could not. All the words 
in all the languages of the earth would 
not be sufficient to convey to the world all 
that you have suffered — not so much on 
account of your affliction as on account of 
the utter neglect that the State and your 
Church have shown toward you in regard 
to your receiving an education that would 
have helped you to become a real, pulsat- 
ing, creative artist, who would have left 
to the generations to follow a heritage 
that would never grow less in value. 

I have no consolation to offer you, 
knowing the present conditions of things, 
other than to assure you that God had you 
and your kind in mind when He made 
Heaven and filled it with angels to play 
the stringed harps of joy that make the 
sweetest music that ever swayed the ar- 
dor of the soul, to play them at the Pearly 
Gates, where you shall in due time enter 
into the beautiful streets of gold that lead 

to the foot of the Great White Throne. 

169 



A PARDONABLE PROPHECY. 

FROM the beginning of man there 
have been false prophets. But he 
who prophesies the elimination of 
what is detrimental to society and a bur- 
den to the commonwealth ; who prophesies 
the betterment, the enlightenment, and the 
uplift of humanity; who sees through the 
superficial surface of conditions the under- 
lying dangers that menace a certain class 
and prophesies the ultimate result of the 
same; who foretells the coming of that 
which will assist the helpless and the for- 
lorn to overcome the impediments with 
which misfortune fills the path — he who 
prophesies all this most certainly does not 
do so falsely. 

Therefore it will be expedient to give by 
way of conclusion my prophetic views rel- 
ative to the subject of this book, though 
these views of mine may not be in accord 
with those who have but casually followed 

170 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the rough and rugged route of the neg- 
lected and uneducated Cripple. 

For, as I write this closing chapter, I 
peer in the windows of the editorial rooms 
of the great metropolitan papers and see 
able editors earnestly engaged in writing 
powerful editorials in advocacy of the im- 
mediate adoption of some remedy for one 
of the most terrifying and unjust condi- 
tions in existence. I see these men wield 
pertinent pens and graphically describe the 
treacherous and damnable cruelty that is 
being perpetrated upon the crippled chil- 
dren of America. I see the papers and 
magazines overflowing with interesting 
and forceful articles by fluent writers on 
the awfulness of the injustice manifested 
toward those whom God has given great 
souls and wonderful minds, although 
housed in twisted and crumpled bodies. I 
see millions of readers scattered over this 
Nation perusing these supremely convinc- 
ing lines and being converted. In short, 
I see the potent effect of the press and its 

171 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

power over the people. I see on every 
hand a wave of disgust and shame at the 
neglect which has blackened the pages of 
our educational history and which has 
hurled into eternity thousands of souls un- 
prepared for the inevitable. 

I get a glimpse of the pulpits of the 
great city edifices of worship and of those 
of the country churches, and I see conse- 
crated ministers standing before their re- 
spective flocks and preaching of the ter- 
rors and of the hellishness of the slavery 
of ignorance of the class that has been the 
unprotected object of all the thunderbolts 
of fate, aversion, and oversight. I hear 
these godly men tell of a Jesus that came 
"to heal the broken-hearted, to preach de- 
liverance to the captives, and recovering 
of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them 
that are bruised." I hear them assert in 
words of eloquence and truth that the 
cause of Christianity is strengthened and 
broadened every time it makes a move for 
the advancement of that which will help 

172 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the needy and the helpless, and I hear 
them add that there is no class of humans 
more in need of the aid and sheltering in- 
fluence of the Church than these same for- 
saken Cripples. I see their faces radiant 
with the light of a love known only to 
those of Christian faith and fortitude, and 
I imagine that I hear their hearts beating 
with rapture as they determine to set forth 
in all their might to fight for the helping 
of helpless humanity. I see these thou- 
sands of divines of all denominations unite 
with the editors, and I know that the result 
will in time be a ringing victory for the 
cause. I see success emblazoned in glow- 
ing letters of golden deeds and hope res- 
urrected in the breast of every deserted 
Cripple. 

The superbness of the sight changes, 
and I see all over this country great edu- 
cators and teachers, who know of the value 
of education, revolving in their master 
minds the need of mental training for the 
handicapped and studiously striving to 

173 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

perfect plans to provide this need. I hear 
them agree that education is desirable for 
the strong and absolutely necessary for 
the weak. I hear them say that the only 
hope of independence for the Cripple must 
be based upon a mental training and that 
the only way to keep him off the shoulders 
of charity is to give it to him. 

I see thousands of club women and char- 
ity workers clamoring for a chance to help 
beautify and save the talents and the souls 
of the half million deformed and handi- 
capped. I hear them discuss the best ways 
and means to carry on the noble work be- 
gun by the few who lingered long enough 
in the company of the crippled to discover 
the essential needs of the same. I hear 
their ringing voices denouncing the people 
who act indifferently, and I note the effect 
of this denunciation. I see that they are 
effectually helping the crusaders in the so- 
lution of the problem of the age, and I see 
their influence spreading. 

Now, since the editors and the preach- 

174 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ers and the teachers and the club and char- 
ity workers have clasped hands, I see the 
masses inflamed to a point of profound 
interest. I am in the midst of countless 
noises and among the clamoring classes, 
yet I hear the cry of the Cripple ascend — 
and, at last, I see the people suddenly pause 
and listen. I see upon their faces a proof 
that they too have heard the cry. I see 
their bosoms rise and fall as they recognize 
and realize that the cry comes from the 
ranks of their own kith and kin. I hear 
them demand that the erstwhile Unheard 
Cry shall be answered immediately. I see 
plainly their determination to go and an- 
swer, and I feel that the answer, although 
belated, will not be too late for thousands. 

The beauty of the scene shifts again, 
and I see a concourse of men possessed of 
brain and energy and love for humanity. 
I see the legislators of the various States 
caucus and discuss the advisability of en- 
acting laws that will eliminate the misery 
of the handicapped by providing for a 

175 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

system of education that will enable the 
making of a livelihood. I hear them agree 
to fight for a bill that will provide a school 
in each State for every helpless or crip- 
pled boy or girl. I hear them dwell upon 
the difference between a crippled citizen 
and a crippled charge. I hear them re- 
solve to transform poorhouses into school- 
houses. I note that they have awakened 
to the fact that the Cripple needs an edu- 
cation as badly as the blind, the deaf, and 
the dumb, and that the State is under ob- 
ligation to furnish a means to obtain this 
education, just as much so as it is to any 
other class. 

Through emotional exuberancy I turn 
around, and there rises before me the 
great and glorious system of public edu- 
cation in all its completeness. It has been 
lacking the one part — the crowning part — 
that of providing for the teaching and 
training of the crippled child — and now it 
has that as a response to the old, old cry 
of the Cripple. The solution has come in 

176 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the way of legislation. The people asked 
for a change of the man-made position of 
the downhearted afflicted. The change 
was made by the establishment of a school 
similar to that of the mute and the blind. 

Again a wondrous sight presents itself. 
I see that not only has the State seen fit to 
help these encumbered ones, but also the 
Church. I see great schools in different 
sections of the Nation for them — schools 
erected and maintained by the various re- 
ligious denominations that have come to 
realize that Jesus had at heart the afflicted 
as much so as the heathen. In these in- 
stitutions of learning the formerly forsak- 
en and forlorn boys and girls of bent stat- 
ure and crooked limbs are being made into 
mental and moral giants. They are Chris- 
tian giants in mind, in heart, in morals, 
and in deeds. 

I see noble men and women, whom God 
Has richly endowed with profound tender- 
ness, keen sympathy, and unfathomable 
love for ill-fated humanity and blessed 
12 lyy 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

with normal physique, good health, and 
much wealth, open wide their purses and 
donate large sums for the poor crippled 
children to attend these great specially built 
schools and universities, in which all the 
sciences and arts are taught — institutions 
that produce men of minds out of physical 
pigmies. I see the mark of satisfaction 
upon these noble persons' faces when they 
chance to see in life a man who, in spite of 
his afflictions and suffering, has achieved 
success and glory as a result of having 
been able to avail himself of the golden op- 
portunity afforded by these wonderful 
schools. 

Too, I behold another sight that is 
thrilling and pleasing. I see in every city 
and every town and every village men and 
women following happily and cheerfully 
many worthy professions and trades and 
making distinct success, although crip- 
pled, handicapped, or afflicted. I see their 
wealth, their happy firesides, their valued 
influence, and all the results of their 

i 7 8 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

indomitable energy, and naturally my 
thoughts go trooping back to the time 
when I was a young man and saw these 
same successful people as helpless chil- 
dren without hope and without a chance 
to cope with the manifold adversities that 
beset them. Their country had finally 
recognized them and their people had 
ceased to ignore them, and they were mak- 
ing good of the opportunity. 

And last, but greater and more glorious 
than all, I see Jesus as He makes His ap- 
pearance on earth again to associate with 
the children of men. I see Him as He 
looks about at the works of those who 
have followed His injunction, and, in all 
His ineffable glory and matchless beauty, 
I see Him as He raises His hands to 
shower upon the head of man his deserved 
praise and hear Him say in a heavenly 
tone of voice : "Even as you have done it 
unto the least of these my brethren, you 
have done it unto me." 

179 



PART II. 



MY EXPERIENCE AS MAYOR BE- 
FORE I WAS TWENTY-ONE. 

IF you are so fortunate as to reside in 
a small Arkansas town and to have 
an irresistible desire to become one of 
the most popular and important persons 
for miles about, just run for mayor and 
get yourself elected. The very moment 
the election judges announce that you have 
been victorious over your opponents, who, 
too, are striving for recognition in the 
local Halls of Fame, your popularity is 
firmly established and begins to spread and 
continues thus until, a very short while 
after the Governor issues you your com- 
mission and you are inducted into office, 
you become thoroughly convinced that 
there is but one position in a small town or 
city that one may occupy and get a taste 
of celebrity, and that distinguished posi- 
tion is that of mayor. 

But in order to get in line for this con- 
stantly sought-for office you must suffer 

181 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the pangs of pain inflicted by the most 
wonderfully mysterious insect known to 
the denizens of the rural districts of Ar- 
kansas — the "political bee." This strange 
insect hatches out in the rural sections, 
usually in unfrequented regions, and starts 
out quite young on a stinging crusade. It 
is generally conceded that its poor victims 
become filled with a burning desire to hold 
office and that there is no panacea for this 
terrible malady save a trip up the much- 
traveled "Salt Creek." Sometimes these 
dreaded pests make their way to villages 
and towns. In fact, they have been known 
to reach the large cities, very rarely, how- 
ever (?). 

I was but a mere lad when one stung 
me. In fact, I was only a few months past 
twenty years of age when the scoundrel 
inoculated me with a desire to become 
mayor of my home town. It filled me with 
sufficient courage and audacity to an- 
nounce my candidacy for the prized and 
honored position. This inoculation, be it 

182 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

remembered, was supported by my deter- 
mination to become popular. 

At the time of my formal announcement 
I was the only citizen of the little town 
of Imboden, nestled in the foothills of the 
Ozarks, that could see any chance of suc- 
cess — and I was too young to vote. If I 
had not been a radical optimist, I would 
have left town between the suns when I 
discovered, as I did, that my announce- 
ment had been received by the voters 
about as seriously as the third nomination 
of Debs was received by the Republican 
and Democratic parties during the last 
presidential campaign — only worse. It 
was a huge joke. Something from the 
regions unknown came to my rescue and 
wielded such a great power over me that 
I became sanguine and did not let the 
apparent obstacles that were stacking up 
before me discourage my ambition. I 
doubled my efforts, renewed my courage, 
greeted my friends, and exercised my in- 
itiative proclivities. I dealt a new hand 

183 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

in the politics of this little Arkansas city. 
I promulgated a platform. 

Hope springs eternal in every human 
breast! My hopes were based upon the 
following: A good progressive platform, 
in which I had incorporated a number of 
worthy and needed reforms; a pair of 
trained Angora goats, which were virtu- 
ally my legs (I am a Cripple, a paralytic) ; 
and last, but greater than all, a dozen 
pretty schoolgirls whom I had appointed 
as my campaign managers. Too, I was 
editor of the local paper. 

I calculated that if a platform as won- 
derful as was mine, two butting goats, 
twelve enthusiastic and loyal girls, big and 
thunderous editorials, backed up by a big 
one-hour political speech in the City Hall, 
couldn't elect me over my two aged and 
honorable opponents, who had been run- 
ning for six months, I had better step 
down and out of the ranks of the would- 
be officeholders and go to peddling tracts 

184 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

on "Why Bryan Was Defeated the Third 
Time." 

For three long weeks I labored, strug- 
gled, and hoped under the most awful dis- 
couragement that ever burdened mortal 
man. I was unable to convince the ma- 
jority of my best friends that I, a mere 
lad, was actually in earnest in my race for 
the exalted position of chief executive of 
my little home city. The old cry that 
would burst forth at almost any time and 
any place was that I was too young to 
qualify in case I was elected. They were 
inexorably inclined to take it as a great 
joke that I was endeavoring to perpetrate 
upon the voters. 

Finally matters grew serious with me. 
It was just five days until election when 
I succeeded in driving the doubt so far 
out of the minds of my friends that they 
began lining up for me and pledging their 
votes and proffering their assistance in 
every way. How did I do it? I read to 
them three opinions rendered by the Attor- 

185 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

ney-General of the State, in which he 
averred that in case I was elected I could 
serve the few weeks I was a minor as an 
officer de facto and that my official acts 
would be valid. Several prominent and 
well-known lawyers of my section con- 
curred in the opinion of the Attorney- 
General. 

On the night of the election the joke of 
my campaign was metamorphosed into 
stern reality when the judges announced 
that I had been overwhelmingly elected, 
that a veritable landslide had given me as 
many votes as both opponents together 
and a big bunch to throw away. The sur- 
prise was as great to me, probably, as it 
was to my sedate opponents, both of whom 
were merchant princes and deacons in the 
Church. The girls, the goats, the edito- 
rials, and the speeches of mine — every- 
thing that contributed to my campaign — 
had at last enabled me to get to my first 
destination on my route of progress which 

1 86 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

I had mapped out for myself. I was over- 
whelmed with pride. 

I was elected on April 2, 1912. I was 
administered the oath of office and had 
placed into my hands the affairs of the 
city on May 6, seven weeks later. On 
July 26 I celebrated my twenty-first birth- 
day. Thus it will be readily seen that I 
was without a doubt the youngest person 
that ever took the oath of office in the his- 
tory of the American Government; and 
on that account there was thrust upon me 
the singular distinction of being the young- 
est qualified and active chief executive in 
the whole civilized world. 

Som few of my disgrunted political 
enemies said I ought not to have taken 
charge of the office. But why should I 
not have done so when an overwhelming 
majority of the taxpayers had disregarded 
my tender age and spoken in my behalf, 
reposing in me a confidence that was 
worth more than silver and gold? Why 
should I not have assumed the duties of 

187 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the office when the Governor of the State 
had issued me a commission immediately 
upon receipt of my election certificate? 
Why should I have hesitated to be sworn 
in when the Attorney-General had in three 
opinions averred that my acts would be 
valid as an officer de facto and that he 
would in no wise recognize an usurpation 
procedure or issue a writ of quo warranto 
to oust me from office on account of my 
age? In my opinion, then and now, there 
was no reasonable reason contrary to my 
actions, so I went in. 

True, it is needless to state that my ex- 
perience in municipal affairs was in keep- 
ing with my age. Nevertheless, I had 
ideas and theories the same as the grown- 
ups — well-developed plans like a veteran 
of the political arena and, in my opinion, 
like a scholar of political science ( ?). 

The fact that the interesting story of 
my unprecedented and unparalleled cam- 
paign and election had reached the metro- 
politan papers by way of the Associated 

188 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

Press and had been carried around the 
world, and that my picture and life story 
were appearing in many high-class maga- 
zines, made me realize that I was being 
watched by others than my confident con- 
stituents. It made me determined to guide 
the activities of my little city as long as I 
was its ruler in such a manner as would 
be in keeping with my unique race and as 
would leave my friends and confidants in 
as good spirits as they were the day they 
polled their votes for me and persuaded 
others to do likewise. Something told me 
of the great and numerous responsibilities 
that were clustered around me. 

I had been in office but a few days when 
a realization of these responsibilities came 
to me. In other words, three months be- 
fore I reached the legal age of manhood 
I, a boy of twenty summers, was having 
every sympathetic chord in my heart 
touched and handled by wayward women 
in self-defense and by devoted and heart- 
aching mothers in behalf of their wild and 

189 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

reckless boys. I was listening to the 
pleadings of little golden-haired girls I had 
known from the cradle for the suspension 
of the sentences imposed upon their drunk- 
en and worthless fathers. I was being 
daily compelled to try in my court boys 
with whom I had gone to school only 
twelve months before, my playmates of 
yesterday. Yes, while but a child, so to 
speak, I was sending men old enough for 
my grandfather to the workhouse and the 
rock pile for the violation of the laws of 
my city and my State, which I Had been 
solemnly sworn to protect and enforce. I 
was putting on probation little dirty-faced 
youngsters brought before me almost daily 
for committing countless misdemeanors. 
In a nutshell, I was carrying the same bur- 
dens that laden the shoulders of every 
mayor of every town and city in the Na- 
tion, notwithstanding my young age. 

It did not take me very long to discover 
that the most unpleasant feature of my 
new position was my necessary personal 

190 



THE UNHEARD CRY 



encounter with very nearly all my constit- 
uents in an unsuccessful effort to explain 
in a minute and satisfactory manner, after 
each official act, why I did so and so. One 
who lives in a large town or city knows 
nothing and cares less about his neighbor's 
affairs ; but in a small town, where all one 
has to do is to go to the corner grocery 
and hear the countless loungers and gos- 
sipers discuss and criticize their friends' 
business and affairs, it is different. I 
might add right here that a very large 
proportion of the criticism and subject 
matter handled by this class is hurled at 
the mayor, regardless who he is. 

Too, in a small town the most trouble- 
some and difficult matters that present 
themselves before the mayor for adjust- 
ment are of criminal nature. In Arkan- 
sas, and probably in most all other States, 
the mayor of an incorporated town is both 
mayor and police judge — both judge and 
jury, so to speak — and it falls to him to 
dispose of all the cases that come before 

191 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

him on account of some criminal action. 
Most times the lawbreakers are his best 
friends, most thoughtful and courteous 
neighbors. In a moment of anger they do 
something rash — maybe break a board 
over each others' heads — and are conse- 
quently arrested and taken before the 
mayor to be dealt with according to the 
law. It is then that the bitter is discovered 
among the sweet. True, the trouble arose 
over some petty something — but ,the law 
has been broken, and precedent says it 
must be enforced, which idea is backed by 
local sentiment. Most times the offenders 
settle it amicably by pleading guilty and 
paying their fines, but occasionally one will 
declare his innocence. It is then that a 
mayor longs for a police judge. 

I had my share of criminal cases. My 
office was the scene of many a hard- fought 
battle. Many a day I pondered and wor- 
ried over just how to decide a case. In the 
very depths of my heart I had but one aim, 
one object: to be just to all and to be as 

192 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

lenient as was consistent. But in render- 
ing a decision it was invariably difficult, 
often made so by the insignificance of the 
charge. Some of the most insignificant 
beginnings have the most significant end- 
ings. There comes to my mind a vivid ex- 
ample : One day two very highly esteemed 
young men were standing on a promi- 
nent corner in the business section of Im- 
boden. One had in his mouth a cob pipe, 
the other a penny whistle. One grabbed 
the whistle, and the other retaliated by 
knocking his friend's cob pipe out of its 
proper position. One word followed an- 
other, and in five minutes' time the two 
erstwhile good friends were rolling and 
scrambling in the gutter in a fierce com- 
bat. The father of the younger boy, a 
merchant, looked out the door and saw 
his son fighting. He rushed in and joined 
his boy. Others immediately rushed to 
the rescue of the other boy. In the twin- 
kle of an eye the street was blocked with 
spectators and fellows fiercely fighting. It 

13 193 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

all began over a penny whistle and a cob 
pipe, which fact goes to prove my asser- 
tion that often grave things result from 
petty things, and especially so in a small 
town. All were brought before me, and 
by the evidence brought out in the trial I 
decided them equally guilty and accord- 
ingly assessed them equal fines. Several 
factions were born. Some said this, and 
some said that. I was right in the opinion 
of many and wrong in the notion of others. 
Thus I have given a true example of the 
typical case tried in the court of a village 
mayor. For one whole term I dealt with 
such without letting myself grow discour- 
aged. I simply did what I thought was 
right and let the fellows talk. Every may- 
or has to do this. 

Another thing that confronts every 
mayor of a little town and often provokes 
and sometimes terrorizes him is his being 
called upon at almost any time to answer 
a volley of questions asked as a result of 
the circulation of some unfounded rumor. 

194 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

In all parts of the world there are people 
who are prone to start rumors and who 
do not hesitate to prevaricate in order to 
accomplish their unworthy designs; but 
there is no place in the world where one 
can be more successful in such a line of 
endeavor than in a small town. Some- 
times these unfounded reports border on 
the serious, and often they are started in 
order to play a joke on some one. 

I had some experience with the latter 
kind the first day I opened my mayor's 
headquarters. Some friends of mine who 
wanted to see me in an atmosphere of ju- 
dicial importance started the untruth that 
the council at its first meeting under my 
administration had, by my urgent request, 
put a ban on the boys going in swimming 
in the beautiful Spring River, that courses 
its way through the principal part of Im- 
boden. The report spread among the lit- 
tle fellows like a prairie fire before a March 
wind. I did not know anything of the 
matter and was just enjoying the quietude 

195 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

of my cozy little office on Front Street 
when in rushed helter-skelter a dozen 
dirty-faced and perspiring youngsters, 
whose patched and faded overalls covered 
about one-half of their physical surface, 
to ask me breathlessly and beseechingly if 
they might "go in swimmin\" I had 
hardly given them my consent and in- 
formed them that it was false — the report 
that it was "ag'in the law" — until I heard 
them in the distance splashing and kicking 
and diving merrily in the crystal waters 
of the wonderful little river whose source 
is the largest spring in the world. They 
were singing in tones very ungodly — I 
can hear them yet, I imagine. I had just 
got comfortably fixed, I well remember, 
and my mind renovated in readiness to 
perfect my plans of what I intended to 
achieve as chief executive, when a score or 
more of other little urchins, who wanted 
to be law-abiding and still take their daily 
dip in "the ole swimmin' hole," shuffled 
in the door and filled my little office to 

196 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

overflowing. They too had heard that it 
was unlawful to swim without my con- 
sent. And so it went all day long, little 
squads of " 'lasses-covered laddies'' charg- 
ing the temple of justice for verbal per- 
mits to take a bath — something that no 
civilized man would refuse them. 

It would be an unpardonable error were 
I to leave the impression that these little 
face-besmeared fellows were my only vis- 
itors during my tenure of office. For prob- 
ably the greatest stimulus to my enjoyment 
of public life were the daily visits paid me 
by my confiding and courteous constitu- 
ents as well as by hundreds of persons 
stopping in town for a few hours. Stran- 
gers from practically every State in the 
Union and from very nearly every city of 
importance in America called on me dur- 
ing the time I occupied the city hall. They 
all had read of me and desired to meet me. 

Too, my well-furnished, cozy little office 
in the heart of the town was the trysting 
place of many a blonde and brunette. 

197 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

They all understood and appreciated the 
fact that the "boy behind the throne" was 
an ardent advocate of woman suffrage 
because he had demonstrated his position 
in regard to their rights by appointing a 
dozen of them to manage his unique but 
successful campaign. They realized still 
further that his office was the only one in 
the South, and one of the few in America, 
where a woman might go and feel that she 
was welcomed as an equal from a political 
as well as a social standpoint. Those girl 
friends of mine, whom I honored by giv- 
ing them a chance to participate in polit- 
ical affairs, would have sacrificed almost 
anything for me and my welfare had oc- 
casion arisen requiring it. I shall never 
forget them; and if a crown of greater 
success is ever placed upon my head, I 
shall give them the glory. 

It required but a few days after my 
induction into office to conclude that prob- 
ably the most important unofficial duties 
that would befall me during my incum- 

198 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

bency would be those resultant from my 
being superintendent and general adviser 
of the municipal bureau of information. 
This is a very responsible position and 
carries with it everything but financial 
gain and personal pleasure. I learned, as 
all village mayors learn in time, that I 
must boost my town at any cost or lose the 
good will of my supporters. I was sup- 
posed to be truth incarnate by most stran- 
gers and was expected by them to tell the 
real condition of everything in town and 
for miles around; and when I did per- 
ceive the error of my way at times and did 
tell the truth, it was all done at my ex- 
pense, for many of my constituents after- 
wards took keen delight in telling me that 
I was solely to blame for So-and-So not 
locating in the little city by telling said 
prospective settler that the place was not 
a good one for a hardware store, et cetera. 
Strangers would come daily to my office 
on missions of wonderful variety. Some 
would want to know if Mr. Henderson's 

199 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

horse was a good animal and free of de- 
fects. Another would inquire if Fillmore 
Sloan rented his land on the shares or for 
cash ; and if the latter, how much per acre. 
Still others would question me as to the 
veracity of Ruff Bowers and as to the 
ability of the leading contractor, Ed Bold- 
ing. Some few would ask me to ascertain 
whether this man and his wife were get- 
ting along happily together since their 
sudden marriage. A thousand and one 
questions, embracing everything in the 
category, were put to me weekly by people 
who seemed to think that a mayor was 
elected for such work and such work alone. 
Hardly had the official seal of the city 
been placed in my custody and my official 
stationery been printed before people seek- 
ing various jobs began to call at my office 
for written recommendations exploiting 
their immaculate character and inestima- 
ble worth. Well do I remember one in- 
cident in particular. An old half-witted 
fellow sixty years of age hobbled into my 

200 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

headquarters one day and implored me to 
give him a written, signed, and sealed rec- 
ommendation, to be used in consummating 
a Hymeneal affair that he had got on foot 
through a matrimonial bureau of the 
North. He told me just simply to write 
my honest opinion of his wonderfully fas- 
cinating personality and the like, and he 
was sure it would be satisfactory. If I 
had done as he requested — in other words, 
if I had written my honest opinion — it 
would have been instrumental in sending 
him to the hospital for nervous diseases, 
better known as the asylum. Many young 
boys, however, I helped in such line of 
favors. 

There is one thing that I have always 
regretted. If I could have done as many 
of my predecessors did, perform marriage 
ceremonies, I should have been satisfied 
unto the uttermost. But such a privilege 
was denied me and all other mayors by a 
decision of the higher courts a few years 
ago, which decision said that a mayor 

201 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

could not legally marry a couple in Ar- 
kansas and which necessitated an act of 
the legislature to validate the marriages 
that had been performed in years gone by. 
I had thought that no greater glory could 
come to a young public official like me 
than that which would most certainly re- 
sult from the performance of a ceremony 
uniting for life two happy souls. I looked 
about me at my young friends who were 
contemplating such ordeals that are com- 
monly known in Arkansas and longed for 
that authority to make them one ; but such 
could not be. 

Monetary matters were very urgent 
when I assumed control of the affairs of 
the little city of Imboden. The adminis- 
tration before me had expended a large 
sum of money for the construction of sev- 
eral miles of concrete walks and for the 
improvement of the streets otherwise. 
Town scrip was dead on the market. It 
brought no more than half price. But by 
a method of retrenchment and economy, 

202 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

instituted by the council under my admin- 
istration, the commercial value was in- 
creased to the extent that those who had 
purchased scrip at half price profited by 
a big* margin. Debt after debt was paid 
ofif, and other matters of similar impor- 
tance were attended to in such a manner 
as to leave the town in a very excellent 
condition in comparison to its state when 
I went into office. My successor has fol- 
lowed the policy of economical adminis- 
tration and is succeeding in placing the 
little city in a class to itself. 

No mayor ever had a more unusual 
council than had I. It was Democratic 
from every standpoint. The members 
were born and bred Democrats. One was 
an old ex-Federal soldier seventy-two 
years of age and thrice mayor of the city, 
one was a farmer, one a section boss, one 
a carpenter, and one a brick mason. I was 
by profession a newspaper correspondent 
and editor. The oldest councilman was, 
as I said, seventy-two years of age, and 

203 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

the youngest was forty-five. I was their 
leader and began as such three months be- 
fore I was of age. With these facts be- 
fore me, I conscientiously believe that no 
such council ever existed in America be- 
fore. We worked, as a rule, with unani- 
mous decision and united on all questions 
of importance. Although heated debates 
were common in the city hall during the 
meeting of the council, nothing was ever 
brought up that did not result in something 
worth while. These councilmen forgot 
my age, so to speak, and helped me in do- 
ing those things that were imperative to 
the good of the town. They never seemed 
to think I was but a boy, but always acted 
as if they were satisfied with my official 
routine duties and acts. A mayor must 
have a friendly council before he can suc- 
ceed in any way. This I had, I am proud 
to say. 

Often have I been asked if my term as 
mayor was worth the trouble and bother 
incident to such a position and if T de- 

204 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

rived any real benefit and profit therefrom. 
(The Governor of a State can manage the 
affairs of a State with much less trouble 
than can a mayor of a small town manage 
a town.) To such questioners I always 
reply in the affirmative, for I most certain- 
ly did benefit from my career in politics. 
My experience with everything connected 
with my race, campaign, tenure of office, 
and official acts cannot be estimated in 
dollars and cents, simply because it all 
made a man out of me. Although I had 
been supporting myself since I was seven- 
teen years old by my work alongside that 
of aged and experienced men, I was not 
conscious of any real and important re- 
sponsibilities until I was placed in the po- 
sition of chief executive of a thriving lit- 
tle municipality, all of whose citizens were 
continuously and eagerly watching my 
every act. The salary and the fees that 
came to me in consideration of my services 
were the smallest things. No comparison 
could be made intelligently of my financial 

205 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

gain with my experience, for day by day 
as my term progressed I came to realize 
that I was no longer a lad, that the world 
was looking upon me as a man in every 
sense of the term, and that I was expected 
to act as such. Therefore how can such 
a position be valued? How important is 
such a keen realization as that to every 
young man on the threshold of active life ! 
No, to this day I have not regretted my 
political venture and experience. Neither 
have I come to look with scorn and unap- 
preciation upon the good people in the 
far-away little town who stood by me not 
only in my campaign and at the polls, but 
also throughout my official career. To 
them I shall always be indebted in vast 
sums. 

So profound was the fascination and so 
keen the enjoyment and so valuable the 
experience afforded by this particular and 
prized position that I was urged by the 
unseen as well as by the seen to acknowl- 
edge my "hankering" for a second term 

206 



THE UNHEARD CRY 

and to announce for reelection; but I 
was saved from this and so were my 
friends and erstwhile supporters by my 
receipt of an invitation from the citizens 
of a well-known health resort to come and 
make my habitat with them with a lucra- 
tive salary and manifold opportunities at- 
tached. Much as I regretted to leave the 
little city in which I had been reared and 
which had so signally honored me at so 
young an age, I did so with a feeling that 
probably my getting out into the world and 
increasing the number of my friends would 
one day enable me to serve them in a more 
important and effective way than as may- 
or. Too, I could stop with the honor of be- 
ing the youngest ex-mayor in the whole 
civilized world ! 

207 



